BeeJee

To the dentist

2007-03-24T06:32:00.000+01:00

After not visiting a dentist for 8 years, I decided to make an appointment in Melaka. The medical standard is the same as in Europe, but the prices are much lower. Besides, I have plenty of time to go. The only possible problem might be that I do not wake up early enough for the appointment. As I do not have any machine that tells me the time anymore, both my camera and telephone have died, I might get up to late. When I wake up on Saturday I go into the street to ask someone the time, it only is 8 o'clock so I can go back to bed for an hour. At 9:30 sharp I arrive at the dentist to find out my appointment is only one hour later. After losing an hour I return. The dentist is a beautiful woman, who speaks impaccable English. She is assisted by a another beautiful woman. May be I should have gone more often to the dentist. The damage in my mouth turns out to be not to bad. One new cavity and some work on an old filling, with some general cleaning at the end. The work takes about 3 quarters of an hour and I am only charged 25 euro's. Next year I will try to come back here.

Afterwards I go to my regular morning coffeeshop, where I bump into Marko who already is enjoying his third coffee. Without having to order, I am served my coffee, by the woman who never smiles. Today is a good day again, like all the days. I do not mind staying here another 2 weeks.

Sama sama

2007-03-19T07:34:00.000+01:00

After staying an extra day in Duri I cycle to Dumai, the last destination in Indonesia. I buy a ticket to Melaka, Malaysia for the ferry for the next day. When I am in an internet cafe, a girl invites me to come with her to the school where see follows an English course. After chatting with some teenagers I am put for a class of 14 year olds to entertain them for one and half hours. Afterwards the teacher and older students present, convince me to return the next day and delay my ferry crossing to Malaysia with one day. At night I watch a concert of a band from Medan in the street of my hotel. When watching I meet a brother of the girls I stayed with in Duri, it is a small world. Before I go to sleep I recheck my Indonesian visa to be sure I do not overstay, with staying an extra night. To my surprise I find out I have to leave the next day, so I will not return to school the next day.

The boatride to Melaka is fast and as the rooms are usually airconned to refrigorator temperatures, it is now quite bearable. In the port I wait till everybody has disembarked before I go ashore. I feel a bit embarrased when the officials direct me to the front of the queue straight through border control. From there I cycle to the Sama sama guesthouse which was recommended by Marko, who I met in Maninjau. The guesthouse is full, but because Marko already is there and has forewarned my arrival I am allowed to stay and sleep in the communal room.

The guesthouse is tiny, it only has 7 rooms, but it contains interesting and nice people and is in the middle of the old town. I won't mind staying here for a while. Soon the biggest decisions in the day, become when and where to eat. There is a lot of variety in restaurants. I can choose between Indian, Chinese, Indonesian and Malay food. I am fortunate that I have very inefficient digestion so every day I can eat at all the cuisines, without growing a big belly, although I would not mind getting on a bit more weight.

The day that I will return to the Europe is set now, as I buy a plane ticket to Frankfurt for the 8th of April. I have not decided what I will do until then. Most likely I will spend most of my time eating.

Earthquake

2007-03-07T08:56:00.000+01:00

On the 5th I reluctantly leave Bukit Tinggi. My visa runs out on the 10th and it at least is 400 km to Dumai from where I wish to take a ferry to Malacca. As this ferry leaves at 8:00AM I have to be there the nineth and to not feel rushed I have to leave. First the road predominatly goes down and I can race with the minibusses, but not far after Payakumbu the road goes up. After a delicious descent, racing a black Honda car all the way down, it becomes tough. The hills are very short and steep, 200 m steep down and right after up. This drains my power especially with the sun blistering the road. When I am at a restaurant to drink some tea to rest I am invited to put my bike on a truck and go with them for the next 40 km. I am very happy with the invitation and hunp on. The big cement truck is probably slower than my bike, but I at least do not have to cycle. After an hour we are surprised by a big bang only to discover that one of the tyres is blown. The delay is an hour, but I am not in a hurry, so who cares? I spend the night in Bankinang, from where I leave early the next morning. Around noon I take a rest in a palmoil plantation, when the earth starts shaking. I check if I am not under a coconut tree and wait till the earth settles down again.
I have been told that the next town with a hotel is Duri. This is still a considerable amount of km away so I do not hang around to long. Against usual practise I continue cycling when the night falls, because I expect Duri to come in sight any moment. The last km are hard, because I no longer can see the potholes, but without many problems I manage to reach Duri. When I walk through the streets to search for fruit and dinner, I am invited by a girl to visit her house and some of her friends. Having nothing better to do I join her. It is not after 5 minutes she tells me I smell bad. She of course is right, but I am surprised she tells me. I tell her I just had a shower, but the combination of heat and dirty clothes do not improve my body odour. I am still welcome to her friends houses, but they keep their distance, which does not stop them to have me invited to marry some girls. After travelling a while I am now pretty much accustomed to these questions and I can politely decline.

Cita cita

2007-03-06T10:39:00.000+01:00

After more than a month at Lili's homestay I finally take the incredible steep road to Bukit Tinggi. To my surprise I am able to digest the 44 hairpins quite easily. I just take the outside of the corner which saves me 10% of incline. Only corner 25 and 30 are a bit hard. My new bike's lightest gear is much lighter than the old one, which also helps. When climbing out the canyon near Bukit Tinggi Herman, Lili's owner overtakes me and invites me to put my stuff in the van and join him to Orie, the bass-player in the Cita cita band. I already met a few of the band members and at Orie's place I see Teddy the singer and Mande, guitarist and singer again. Also Marko, the German I spent most of my days hanging out with in Bayur. In the evening the band was to play at an art gallery, but in the end they play in a cafe. Afterwards most of us go to Orie's place, his parents have a huge house. The next day we tour around the countryside in Orie's van. It is very nice to hangout with the band members and I hope I will see them again in a not so distant future.

A lazy month at the lake

2007-02-28T09:57:00.000+01:00

Februari 1 I cycle to lake Maninjau, to do some resting. In Bukit Tinggi I got a bit of feever and I intend not to leave before I am feeling 100%. In Lili's homestay, which is more like a guesthouse, I find just what I need. At the lake, nice people and an amazing scenery. In the cupboard I find "It" of Stephen King and I am all set to do some resting.

Teaching them

2007-01-30T09:25:00.000+01:00

After leaving Tuktuk January 24th I head south in the direction of Bukit Tinggi. After a few km it becomes clear I should have stayed longer on Samosir, I have no idea how to sit comfortably. Stuborn as I am, I ofcourse continue. Still the enthousiastic cheers and greetings make me sometimes forget I have a row with my saddle. In the afternoon it starts raining, hard. After a short break to put on my raincape I proceed. I always like cycling in the rain, only today it is sometimes hard to look in front of me as the rain comes into my eyes. Around 16:00 still in heavy rain I reach Tarutung. Although the small city has quite a few hotels, I cannot find a place that suits my wallet. At 17:00 finally I find a room I think is cheap enough. The fungus is on the wall and it is rather dark, but I can park my bike in the room and hang my wet clothes to dry. I really like these small towns, the people are not that used to white people and everywhere I go I am spoken to. I am invited by a couple of old guys to share their can of tuak. A nice company, two christians, two muslims and one who is neither. Although one of them speaks a litle bit English, it becomes more interesting when the daughter of one of them, Mona Lisa, joins us. She loves to watch football and is beautiful as well, sounds like the ideal woman. Two days later I stop in Penyabungan to spend the night. I am eating some food to wait for the rain to stop, when a beautiful girl invites me to come to her house. Although it is still raining I do not mind following her. It turns out that she takes me to a school where they teach English to highschool kids. After a brief introduction by the teacher I take over the class and tell about me and answer questions. 15 minutes after I have started, I am invited to take my class to the other room, as the other students want to talk/listen to me too. The class ends after 1.5 hours but I stay a while longer to talk with the teachers and other people who have come in. I am in vited by the father of the beautiful girl to have dinner at their home, but I decline, I am tired and I feel a throatpain coming up.

The 27th I expect to have a long cycling day as no big towns are en route until Lubuk Sikaping. I do not know if it is the beautiful surroundings, green paddi's with coconut (kelapa) trees dotted around them and low green hills on the back, but my ever complaining ass keeps rather quiet. Unfortunately it starts raining again, this time I do not stop, maybe my clothes get clean this way. I have just bought a pancake (mertabak) with black rice in it, when I am overtaken by two boys on a scooter with the request to stop. I ask them why and I keep up my nice pace. The driver, Johan, tells me his mother saw me passing by and had told him to invite me to stay with them. This is an offer I like and I quickly turn around and cycle 5km back with them. When entering the house I bump my head to the doorpost, not for the last time. When I enter 20 people follow, all want to see this strange white fellow with his big nose. The halfparalyzed father indicates that the people who have no business here have to leave the house. Unfortunately for them they can not take their place outside at one of the windows, because they already have been taken. Also bothered by the people peeping in, the father has the curtains shut. Johans brother who has braindamage since his birth is very happy with my presence and climbs in a coconut tree to ge me a young coconut, the milk tastes delicious. After that, I play football on a rocky patch of ground. I get several little wounds on my feet, but I ofcourse am a representer of all Dutch football players so I can not forsake, I leave a good impression I think. After bath (mandi), throwing scoops of cold water over me, dinner is ready. Johans uncle is an English teacher and I am going to his huge place after. There I am expected to have dinner again. Fortunately I have a big appetite and without a problem I eat all that is offered me. The uncle invites me to come along to his school the next day on Sunday. To the disappointment of Johans mother I am already picked up when I am just starting my breakfast. The uncle asks me if I do not have any other (more decent) clothes, with a big smile I deny.

As these are not the first classes I visit I get a bit more experienced in it. I do not tell to much about me, because half of the time they will not understand anyway, I let them come up with the questions. Sooner or later the question is asked if I am married and when I answer a lot of noise comes from the class. Next questions usually are if I would like to have a girl from this country, what religion I am and if a girl of different religion would be a problem. In the second class a girl even asks me to be her boy friend. Trying to be careful with her feelings I say, that if she has a bike she is invited to join me. Later when I ask someone to write an Indonesion word on the board for me she is fighting with another girl over the marker, she looses. After the third class, my last for the day, I am taken in to a photoshoot and autograph session. The whole class, well especcially the girls, want to be in a picture with me. Even the headmaster wants to be in a picture with me. In Rao Johan is already awaiting me and he and his friends take me to a nearby village to get Rambutan and play in the river. At night we play chess. First I beat Johan, without much effort, then I am invited to play against a kid who can not be older than twelve. I should have been warned. I am not and underestimate the little fellow and am kicked off the board in no time, a big blow for my ego. Later we watch Italian footbal on tv. This night I put autan on, so that I can sleep, the previous night I have not slept a wink.

After a big breakfast I leave the hospitality of Johans place and head for Lubuk Sikaping. In the evening I stop at a coffeeshop to have a tea and talk with the father, daughter and the other guests all night. The next morning I have a huge breakfast here too and am not allowed to pay. Then only a short trip to Bukit Tinggy the tourist centre of Sumatra. I do not really like it, to many tourists.

Tuktuk

2007-01-24T16:11:00.000+01:00

The 21st I cycle to Lake Toba. Because it is Sunday and this area is predominantly Christian I pass a lot of long lines of beautifully dressed people going to church. As usual all people are very enthousiastic when I pass. The first 15 km I go lightning fast, slightly downhill and wind in the back. The mini-busses cannot keep up with me. Until I reach the lake cycling goes smooth and fast, after the road goes up and down and I am glad when I reach Parabat, where I can take the ferry to the island in the lake. The ferry drops me at the place I want to stay. I get a nice little bungalow with view over the lake and it costs me only 25,000 IDR. At the reception I find a book of Dan Brown to spend some relaxing hours reading. When I am eating a banana pancake in a restaurant overlooking the lake I see Tom cycling by. Apparently he has rented a bike. I stop him and invite him to join me. He told me he had seen me cycling yesterday. I find out it took me only 2 hours more to do the 100 km by bicycle than he by bus. The rest of the day I spend reading in a restaurant in the middle of nowhere, now and then ordering "the manis" and food. At night when I take shelter for the rain in a restaurant I am persuaded to take some snake soup. The snake tastes a bit like chicken but is more tender and the meat has a slightly different texture. It is nice to see what the bone structure is like as well.

The next morning I have a pancake at the same restaurant just outside tuktuk as yesterday. Here I meet Tom again, who prefers the cooking of this woman to that of his hotel. After that I head of north by bike to do a little of touring on Samosir island. This was not a smart idea, my ass has not recovered and by this little trip I open the old wounds. In the evening it rains hard again. It is a beautiful sight to see the rain coming in over the lake. Later I visit the python restaurant again for another soup. This time the owners oldest son is around and he plays the guitar and sings with it all night. The womans sister is living in Delft in the Netherlands and she asks me to take some letters home with me for her, although no problem for me, it is probably better to post them as they than will arrive faster in Delft.

On the 24th at 8:00 I am picked up from my hotel by the ferry to cross the lake again, I will head south.

Fotoshoot

2007-01-21T15:07:00.000+01:00

The first thing I do in Berastagi is to buy a screwdriver to open my camera. The unfortunate thing is that every time I (un)screw the screws of my camera the screwdrivers head gets screwed. Then I open the camera and see that water has entered the camera and some parts on the circuit board (?) are slightly corroded. I try to clean them and think I do a good job, but in the process a strip that connects 2 parts gets torn. I give up project revive camera and throw it into the dustbin. The next morning, January 20 I climb the nearby volcano. At the top I meet Tom, an Englishman I had met they before. Again I am not sure his name is really Tom, but I did not dare to ask anymore after so much time together. Together we descend on the steep path down. In the valley we drink a couple of The manis before we set back to the town, which to our surprise is 15 km away. Fortunately I manage to convice a family to take us with them in their car. After I wander a while through the town. It is always fun to do this as the people are so friendly and curious. I read in a comment book some people hate all the attention, I love it. I talk to everybody who addresses me and greet (almost) everybody. One of three girls, after greeting them for the second time, finds the nerve to talk to me and we go to the same internet cafe. When I leave, they leave and we end up having a drink at a mobile KFC of all places. In their view KFC is cool I guess. All I know it is bloody expensive and the food awful. They want to have a picture of me, but have no camera, I confess I have none either. They decide they will buy some film and borrow a camera. The first place they want to have our picture taken is in a horse carriage, but I refuse to go with them in a horse carriage through town. Maybe only a picture on the spot, but no tour. In the end the girls sit on horses and I am in between them. After that to the park. When it gets dark I have to say goodbye to the three nurses as I am going to have dinner with Tom. When I have finished dinner with Tom, I try to find the girls hotel, but to no avail.

Tough roads

2007-01-20T14:17:00.000+01:00

I thought I have seen some bad roads, but Indonenesia opens new views on roads. The plan was to go in one day from Bukit Lawang to Berastagi, a town close to a working volcano. The road to Bukit Lawang already was pretty bad, rivers and palmoil trucks have quite a demolishing power, but the road I travel on Januari the 18th is something else. I should have been alarmed when someone on the way told me I could stay at Pammasimeler when I had not enough time left to go all the way. From Simpan Durenmolok to Telagah my ass gets a very serious beating from all the big rocks I have to go over, but at least this road is flat (at the beginning). There is one positive thing in this, it gives me the kick for being faster than motorbikes and cars. The closer I get to Telagah the worse it gets. Asphalt is no longer to be found, just loose rocks and huge holes, it still is possible to cycle though. I thought I had understood that the road would improve after Telagah, so with almost all my energy spent I am relieved I finally reach Telagah. After nasi goreng telur I remount and proceed on my trip. To my horror the road gets even worse, now I am not able to cycle anymore. Pammasimeler is still 40km away. This is most likely going to be a long day. My speed is probably close to 3km an hour, I might have to camp. Then my luck changes, I had misunderstood the person who told me the distance, it is only 4km. Pretty much exhausted I am invited by Udin, a coffee farmer from Pammasimeler to stay at his place. He cooks for me a simple dinner of rice, beans and fish. In the morning I get noodle soup before I head for Berastagi. After been able to cycle about 200m I have to dismount again and push my bike through the road that more resembles a (dry) riverbed. Then just before the top, delight, paved road. Not smooth but, paved. At times incredible steep. I have to keep my body above my handlebar, otherwise I will fall backward but I can cycle. Around 11:00 I climb a little top and find a great panorama, which also contains the volcano in the distance. This place is also inhabited, so I can start greeting and be greeted. For me this is such a joy. All those laughing faces, smiles, enthousiastic cheers, just because I pass by. Although still not flat, once in a while the road dips quickly to a river to go up steeply right after, cycling is easy and around noon I reach Berastagi. I am going to stay here 2 nights to give my ass some well needed rest and to visit the volcano of course. My ass feels like it is one big wound. I did not know how to sit on my saddle anymore, I hope 2 days not cycling is enough.

King in the jungle

2007-01-20T10:07:00.000+01:00

In the evening of the 9th I text my brother I want to cycle to a big lake, not far from Medan, but that I do not have a map and consequently no clue in what direction to head. He promptly replies with the directions, fortunately I also find a map of Sumatra in the evening. On this map I see a symbol of an orangutan north of Medan. The next morning before leaving I ask the landlady where I can find this Orangutangs and she tells me I have to go to Stabat. I am already well on my way, when over lunch I talk to some locals I wish to see orangutangs. They convince me I should not go to Stabat, no "jungle man" there, Bukit Lawang is where I should go. I head back and after a 40km over a road of dismal quality I reach the town. Halfway I have met Muhdi and Baba, when taking pictures of a wedding. They want to ride my bike and after lowering the saddle considerably, they are about 1.60m tall, first Muhdi and then Baba have a shot, I ride conveniently on the back of the scooter.

Muhdi manages to convince me to take a jungle tour of 5 days with him. I will be the only tourist, Baba will come as well and Ling completes the group, he will be the cook. In the morning we are not even an hour in the jungle or we spot a Orangutang with it's baby in the next hour I see 5 more. Then we have nasi goreng for lunch with fresh cucumber and tomato with fresh fruit as desert. In the afternoon we only see mosquito's and at 15:00 Muhdi and I arrive at the camp, that Baba and Ling already have setup. Tea is already waiting. I have to do nothing but walk and play card. Ling is a master in the kitchen i.e. campfire. Every day 3 dish dinners, breakfast with club sandwiches and omelets or banana pancakes. The treks are a bit short, consequently we do not get really deep in the jungle, one of the consequences of not plannng the event I guess. Still I manage to see, next to the orangutans, black gibbons, 2 types of hornbill, longtail macaque and monitorlizzard, which is the smaller brother of the komododragon, but still seizable with a length of 2m. Next to the unavoidable musquito's I saw also quite a few leaches, but unfortunately no tigers, I would have gladly swapped the 2 first ones for the latter. On day four I decide to stay 2 more nights in the jungle. Unfortunately on one of these days I break the camera when Muhdi takes pictures of me when showereing under a waterfall. The jungle experience ends with rafting on cartubes over the river back to Bukit Lawang. The river is quite wild because of the hours of rain we have had the last week. So we manage to turn up side down once and break a steering stick, both not big problems, plenty of sticks in the jungle anyway. Although I enjoyed being in the jungle I am a bit disappointed. We were near the civilised world all the time, next time I will try to get really deep into it.

At the destination

2007-01-20T09:37:00.001+01:00

When I am waiting for the ferry to depart, I see two similar bicycles to my bike being carried on board. They belong to two girls who have bought them at the same shop as I in Bangkok. In Penang I join them to the hostel they have booked, but when it turns out to be full I head to the one that was recommended to me by Willem and Annette. I stay close to the Indian neighborhood where I can enjoy a lot of nice street food. The next morning I head straight to the Indonesian consulate to arrange a visa. To my relief this seems to be no problem, I can even get 60 days, but I first have to buy a ticket to Indonesia. I rush back to the port to buy a ticket for next Tuesday after which I cycle as fast as I can back to the consulate. I can pick up the passport Monday morning. In the afternoon I wander into a bookshop and find a copy of “The count of Monte Christo” of Alexandre Dumas. It is not so much its fame that makes me buy it but its size. It has over 1400 pages which should keep me busy for a while so I do not have to search for a new one soon. Unfortunately I have not an awful lot to do, so I finish it on Monday. On Sunday I cycled around the island. It was not my intention, I just searched for a nice place to read my book when I ended up at the other side of the island. I decided to go around. I had misjudged the distance so I end up cycling in the dark. I had wind in the back and was going faster than the cars, overtaking them right and left. Exhausted and soaking wet I return at the hostel, but it was good to cycle again.

When I want to pick up my passport I am stopped at the gate of the consulate. To enter, I have to identify myself. I try to make clear that I came to pick up my passport so I cannot show it, only until a superior arrives I am allowed in. The clerk behind the desk recognizes me and swiftly hands me my passport, only after I promise to also visit Bali.

Early in the morning of Jan 9 I take the ferry to Belawan, Indonesia. Halfway, on mid sea and bigwaves, the engine suddenly stops. One of the crew jumps in the water to have a look under water. It is a bit unnerving to be without propulsion when you know recently a ferry sunk in Indonesian waters. After an hour we get going again, something was in the propeller. A few hours later we arrive on Indonesian soil, destination reached. My plan was to stay in Belawan, but I cannot get any money. Two atm’s are empty. This message is not conveyed in the screen though. I go through the whole process and when I am supposed to take the money nothing happens. Inside they tell me not to worry, the machine is empty. At the other bank with ATM, my card is not accepted. I see no other option but to cycle to Medan. I end up at the tollway, but after 5 km I am pulled up. I say it is no problem for me to cycle here and that I do it all the time. Not convinced by my arguments I am directed to another road close by, which also goes to Medan. It is fun to cycle here, people are very enthusiastic when I cycle by, but traffic is much more chaotic than in the previous countries. I constantly have to dodge cars and break hard to avoid bumping into suddenly stopping cars.

18 year old Chinese

2007-01-08T11:36:00.000+01:00

The first thing that strikes me upon arrival on Langkawi is the well kept and modern looking terminal. It appears that Malaysia is a richer country than Thailand. The prices here are also considerable higher than in Thailand, but that might also have to do with the fact that I am in a very touristy place. In the terminal I try to retrieve some local currency from the ATM, but I am initially denied for lack of funds. Fortunately I am able to get a lower amount from the machine. With the help of a leaflet with the map of the Island I decide to go the west coast. I find a beautiful beach, but with almost only expensive places to stay. I manage to find a not to expensive room however. On the beach I meet the Thai family again I met earlier on the ferry. I get the impression the woman is trying to match me with her sister, but I can hold that off. She probably wants to flatter me, but in my view does not, when she guesses my age is 18. This is a new record, usually I am guessed to be around 26 or so, although I have a niece I had never seen before who estimated my age 19, but that was 2 years ago. Apart from people judging me much younger I am not infrequently guessed to be (partly) Chinese. Apprantly because of my eyes. So if it were for some people I am to be an 18 year old Chinese.

At night I go to a semi fancy restaurant and order red snapper, for 6Rm per 100gram. When after waiting a very long time I inquire after my meal I am soon presented with a fish. My knowledge of fish is not so great, but the fish seems to me not a red snapper, but I eat it anyway. The big fish tastes good and after finishing I ask for the bill. I am a bit startled when I see it, I am to pay 114 Rm, while I only have 100 on me. It also seems a bit high, it would mean a fish of more than 1.5 kg. Just when I tell them that I do not have enough money with me, my eyes fall on the name of the fish I am supposed to pay for. I turns out I have been eating a bull fish which is twice as expensive. I make clear I had ordered a redsnapper. They had made a mistake in the kitchen, they say, and I get away with half the cost, which is only fair. Still it is expensive enough.

The next day I hike to the top of one of the mountains, but the view at the top is disappointing. It is a bit misty and the trees and brushes on the top prevent a clear sight. I do see that in the northwest of the island is a nice beach and after descending I head there. I had hoped to find a little town, but the only thing I find is two resorts. I go through one of them and park my bike at the beach and go for a swim and do some reading. When the sun is about to set I take my luggage on my back and take up my bike and climb over 100 m of rocks followed by a walk through the rising water to a small island for the coast. Here I set up my mosquito net and gather dry wood. Before it is dark I make some instant cereal for dinner and after that I make my campfire. The only thing missing is some one to share it with, but apart from that it is perfect. The next morning I am only just in time to leave the island before the tide is to high, which would have me confined to the island for a longer period, unless I would have been saved by someone of the resort. The last night on the island I spend on a beach in the northeast. Again I make my campfire and all is well until I lay down under my net. Then I am attacked by dozens of little insects who go straight through the net. Although small they are very capable of biting/stinging. They are easy to kill, but usually the kill comes to late. The next morning I wake with over 40 red spots over my body, it looks like I have the measles. Fortunately the spots do not show long and do not itch much. With the boat of 14:30 I leave Langkawi and go to Penang.

New year

2007-01-05T06:28:00.000+01:00

In Phuket I still can find to my surprise accommodation for a decent price. I delay the search for the departure time of the ferry to Ko Lanta till the next day and on this Christmas evening I just roam through the streets, eating and drinking at the various food stalls and cafe's. The next morning I find out that the only boat to Lanta has already left, still I head to the port to see for my self, very often public transport does not leave at it's designated time. After being sent in the wrong direction a couple of times I finally reach the port, with no hope the ferry is still there. All is not lost as at 10:30 another ferry leaves for Ko Pipi from where I can take a ferry to Lanta. The water in Pipi harbour is exceptionally clear, I can see colourful fish and long and pointy snouted ones. After 2 hours I leave for Lanta. Although the beach is beautiful, Lanta seems to be a place predominantly visited by Swedish families and couples. At the same time accommodation is expensive. I find a quiet place on the beach and pitch up my mosquito net. I intend to stay only 1 night but I end up staying 3. The main reason is that I am able to get my hands on some new secondhand books, which I read almost non-stop, only interrupted by a quick dive in the water. The first night I sit in a little restaurant at the beach talking to a couple Australian girls and just when I raise my hand, something sticky falls on my pointing finger. At first I think it is bird dropping, but when I look closer I notice it is a little gecko. When it has recovered from the shock it takes off leaving me behind wondering how it could survive a drop of about 4m.

On the 29th I finally manage to get my lazy ass of the beach. I end up in Trang a reasonable sized town with a nice evening market with again nice snack opportunities. Apart from that, I cannot find anything interesting, so I leave the next day for Thungwa, only about 70 km away, which means a short easy ride. The Belgium couple on a double, that I meet at the beginning of the afternoon, tries to convince me I should cycle another 30 km further to the coast, but I am determinedly lazy and stick to my decision. On the last day of the year I head to Satun where I will say goodbye to 2006 and to Thailand. On the road south I am overtaken by scores of breath taken beautifully dressed beautiful women on scooter, either accompanied by similarly dressed friends or paraded by their proud boyfriends(?). Next to my hotel is a bar where I find a few westerners and locals to celebrate the end of the year and the beginning of the new year with. A couple of French are already wasted at 10 o'clock and fortunately leave. In the end only a Belgium guy, the French bartender and I remain. It could have been a worse night, could have been a lot better also. The next morning I only wake up at 8:22, with the ferry to Langkawi leaving at 9:30. I pack my stuff as fast as I can, cycle the 8 km and go through customs and just make it. Not long after departing I fall a sleep, I am awaken by a passenger as we have arrived on Langkawi, when most already have left the ship.

Beaches everywhere

2006-12-29T14:17:00.000+01:00

December 16th I stay in a youth hostel at the beach. Strangely enough dormitory is as expensive as a cabin, although the cabin is more like a hut with a bed and a bench. I decide it is time to have a shave, the few moustache hairs I have start to fall into my mouth once in a while. I have no running water, no mirror and shaving cream. I put the water in my pan and use the soap I bought to clean my clothes in Tunis. After half an hour scraping I get the idea I have finally have rid me of the unwanted hairs. I take a picture to verify the results. At night karaoke is organized and because I have a strong dislike of it I flee to the beach. I finally have rented a place to sleep, I still end up sleeping on the beach. The next morning I try to get my free included breakfast. To my opinion the thing I get is not registered as breakfast, one bad coffee and 2 toasts with jam and butter. Swiftly I check out and head south.

My 3 weeks of not cycling and differently shaped saddle is taking its toll. My crotch is aching and my left ball has a huge blister on it. I tape it with duck tape in the hope this helps. The 18th I end up cycling to Ranong, much further than planned, but towns before it I did not really like. The next morning I cycle to the port to catch the ferry to ko payam an island recommended by one of my drinking buddies in Bangkok. When I arrive I am welcomed by a fellow cyclist. He turns out to be Dutch and is here with his wife, they have stayed at the same place I had. His name is Willem and his wife’s is Annette and they have been traveling on and off for the last 12 years. When we arrive on the island we promise to have dinner one night. It turns out that I have all my dinners with them and also a few other meals. Willem and Annette are full of stories and it is great to spend the evenings together. Apart from eating and talking with Willem and Annette, I take it easy. I rent a sea kayak for half a day to peddle to the next beach, this turns out harder than expected and when I can see it, I decide I am close enough and turn around. When I return I meet a woman whose husband took the luggage to the hut, but she was not aware where that was. When she and her son arrive at my place the owner affirms that her husband has arrived. But when she checks the cabin, it is empty. Her son has left with the scooter when he heard they had arrived at the right place and said he would return somewhere in the evening. I hope they were reunited later.

December 22nd I leave for the mainland again. I still have a long way to go to Malaysia and my visa will run out the 6th of January. I have my chain cleaned at a place recommended by Willem and then I head to a guesthouse. Here I meet the Israeli who occupied the hut next mine on the island. He has bought a bike and wants to visit the international rainbow festival. We decide to go together the next day. We arrive after dark after climbing rocks on the beach with our gear and bikes. In dark we search for a little spot to set up our stuff, my mosquito net and his hammock. I don’t want to stay, so I leave the next morning. I end up sleeping on the beach again near Takuapa, but now I have the whole beach for me alone. Probably the first Christmas eve I am totally on my own. In stead of having a nice dinner I have forgotten to eat since noon and I don’t feel like leaving the beach, so I end up hungry. I should start traveling with some food on me again. On Christmas day cycling is tough, I guess because I have not properly eaten the previous day. Today I feel I need energy, but I don’t feel like eating anything. I end up buying a lot of bananas and eating them. In the afternoon I start feeling better and when I arrive in Phuket city I am fine again, except for my crotch, which has still not fully recovered.

Bangkok by air

2006-12-13T15:05:00.001+01:00

On the morning of the 8th I take a flight to Bangkok. Gisi an Austrian girl is so kind pay for the taxi from the airport to the centre. Dylan from Hawai joins us as well. Dylan knows a cheap guesthouse near Kaosan and we end up there. In the evening we meet Gisi again, who spent most of the day in a swimmingpool, before she flies back tonight. The 9th is dedicated to rhyming, my family celebrates Sinterklaas tonight. All rhymes are finished except the one for Iljoesja, sorry Il! The next few days I use to look for bikes, but not to fanatical if it was not for Vlad a Czech in the same Guesthouse I probably would still be looking. In between my searches I meet Eric, from the beach in Myanmar and with him I go on a trainride to the southeast of Bangkok. The train almost goes through peoples houses and when it stops in town, people go in on one side and leave through the opposite door, because they do not want to wait until it leaves. Just before the end point the train goes through a market. The stalls and the merchandise have to be moved everytime a train passes. Fortunately for them not that often
I also bump into Roger, I met him and Mireile in Kunming and although Mireile is not feeling well we have dinner and a lot of beers (only with Roger). The 14th I finally leave Bangkok with my newly acquired bicycle. On advice of the boys at the guesthouse I have been drinking with the last few days I take the train until Petchaburi. Because of excess alcohol consumption I fail to catch the two trains in the morning so I end up taking the one at 13:00. When I arrive in Petchaburi I cycle 100 meters and then ask for directions to a policeman. At that moment two motorcyclists collide and one ends up in my front wheel. I have in total not cycled 5 km with this bike and already it is ready for repairs. When I remove the front brakes I can still cycle and for the nex hour I follow the policeman around town for someone who can repair the front wheel. The only bikeshop is closed for a few days, because the daughter is getting married. Eventually we find someone who does an excellent job. He does not want any money for it, not even for the coke I took from his shop. It feels good to be cycling again! Later that night I am invited for beers and dinner by a group of boys all working in the same icecreamshop. In the morning finally cycling really begins I end up at a deserted beach, with a restaurant nearby, an ideal combination. Unfortunately to get from my musquito net to the restaurant I get attacked by dozens of musquito's. I can kill most of them, but quite a few managed to get some Bart blood. I had hoped that they would be quiet when I leave the safety of the net for a midnight pee, no such luck. The next morning I am invited to watch some cock boxing fights in a small homemade arena. I watch two fights, but I am not able to see, who wins. On the road top Thap Sakae I loose my map. When I try to buy a new one I meet a man who advises me to go to Ban Kruit, it is about 20km and the man is waiting at every crossroads to direct me in the right direction and at one point he holds a can of coke out when I pass, it feels like I have a support car with me.
I am very lucky with the wind. It is coming from the northeast and blowing with force Bf6. This makes cycling very easy most of the time. When I get lost, because I forgot the name of the city I was supposed to be going to, I have a few less nice stretches of road.

Exit Sambi

2006-12-13T15:04:00.001+01:00

On November 20th I reach Magway. A boring town, but fortunately with a bikeshop with a fork for my bike. When I try to fit it on the bike it proves to short. Welding the old tube to the fork is no longer possible, but I get hold of a new tube, and someone to weld it to the fork. I have a bike again! The next day I delay departure to halfway the morning because of stomach problems. Still not feeling great I leave for the beach. Three times I am directed in the wrong direction and when on the right road I am stopped by the police, no entrance for foreigners. I head back to Magway, but do not want stay again in the lousy guesthouse. I set up camp a few km east of the town, not after throwing up after which I feel much better.

Just after lunch I ride through a very small hole, this however is to much for Sambi. Again the fork breaks, now outside the frame, which makes me tumble forward over the handlebar. After a while I get up and check my wounds, nothing serious. At the same places as last time, but this time at the left side, I am in balance again. When I drag the bike to the side of the road I decide I have enough of it and I will leave Sambi behind. I take of my backpack, panniers and the tires, they are still good and when everything is packed I stop a pick-up truck to the next town, taungdwingy. I try to check in to a guesthouse but at both I am not allowed to stay. When I am drinking a soda at a cafe thinking of what to do next I am visited by the immigration police. They want to know all about me. The end of the story is that I am not allowed to stay in the town. When I tell them that there are no places available on the busses, they make a phonecall and all of a sudden there is a place. The 12 hour busride is not a nice re-introduction to public transport. The woman next to me vomits half the busride, when doing so, puts her kid on my lap. The people in the chair in front of me, put it back as far as possible, I have no place to rest my head and as ice on the cake halfway during the night a rat climbs into the bottom part of my trousers, he does not stay long though.

In Yangon I go to the White house hotel where I am allowed to use the breakfast, although I only pay for coming night. Here I bump into Hilton. The both of us stay for the full 2 hours that the well assorted buffet is open and eat almost enough for the rest of the day. When I go outside I see Helen get her luggage out of a taxi. After a brief exchange of news I invite her to join dinner with Hilton and me. At the end of the day we end up having drinking beer with the largest part of the group from Bagan. When we enter a bar I am surprised to hear a local band play to my knowledge an Engnlish version of a Dutch song Suzanne of "VOF de Kunst", but maybe it was originally English. The next morning I find a little package at the reception. Helen has brought some bandages and stuff to clean wounds. It gives a good feeling that someone has thought of my health. Then I head to the busstation to take a bus to the beach on advice of a German couple I met at breakfast. The first night I camp on the beach, but in the morning I am told it is not legal. Later that day I rent a little hut at the beach next to Eric, an American I had met in the bus the day before. Although I have to make rhymes for my family for Sinterklaas I do not find the time to do this, instead I do nothing or play football on the beach with a few locals. We win, but most of my wounds are open again and I even have a new one on my shin. Fortunately I have the stuff from Helen.

On the third of December I take the bus back to Yangon. To my surprise Jake, I met him earlier in Tunis and Istanbul, has already arrived, he had told me he would only arrive tomorrow. I manage to fill my days with almost nothing. Every day has the same routine. I have breakfast from 8 till 12 and chat with everybody around, then go out for a while like the market or the famous Shwe Dagon Paya. Have a few snacks, then dinner on the street or in a restaurant and I conclude with a couple of beers. It is nice to take it easy for a while, but I already start missing the bycicle.

Smiling people

2006-12-13T14:56:00.000+01:00

November 17, I head into Myanmar. The Chinese side gives me a hard time, because of my visa extension in Shanghai, which seems to be extended 10 days late. After half an hour they finally let me go to the Myanmar side. Here I call the number I received and after a while Mr. Tonka shows up to get me into the country. Once in a while I am asked to sign something and after more than an hour I am in. My bike already was on the roof of the taxi. I only have to pay the absurd amount of 150 euro to the travel agent of which the largest part will go to the regime I am sure. Then a taxi takes me and mr Tonka, who is a small fragile guy, instead of the big bulky association I have with this name. If I want to stop somewhere I have to ask Mr. Tonka and he will decide if we can. At the end of the afternoon I am released from my babysitter when I am dropped off at 1 of the 2 hotels I am allowed to stay in Lashio.

I have not noticed much of the regime, we had 2 checkpoints, but it seemed they could have been avoided if I had wanted to if I had been cycling on my own. I saw a university in the middle of nowhere, Mr. Tonka told me the regime deliberately is placing them there to move students out of the city, as they are the main source of its critics. The next day I am so happy, I sing, hum, whistle and greet people non-stop. The people seem to be happy to see me, before I see them they greet me with “hello”, “good-bye” or “ok” and all are giving me a big smile. Even the group of people working on the side of the road, with 2 guards with semi-automatic watching them, give me a warm welcome. Not far before Hsipaw I cross a bridge with next to it another bridge on the bottom of the river, the truck that probably caused the break still on it. When I try to make a picture I am told to keep on cycling. The guide had told me a nice place to stop was Hsipaw, he pronounced it as “chebor” so when I went trough Hsipaw I did not recognize it. When I ask for directions to Hsipaw 10 miles later the guy thinks I am nuts, I decide cycle 20 miles more for the next town. There I am invited by a kid to sleep at his house. He and his friends take me out with their scooters, to a place where a band plays (very badly) and after that to hot springs.

The next day I pay a visit to Mr. Thapa, the boys’ English teacher when I head in the direction of Mandalay. He is glad to see me again and offers me an instant coffee. Nearly everything is instant in Myanmar. After 15 mile I have to go steep down to the river, I can already see the road up after the river. When going down I can not avoid cycling over a snake that also was going down. It was making big s’s and made a launch for my rear tire but it was to slow, probably injured as well. This reminds me to be careful when I go off the road.

A couple of miles before Pyin Oo Lwin I see a beautifull Paya on the top of a hill. I decide to put in the extra effort and have a closer look. After only 10 meters my rear wheel hits the frame. Initially I think one of the bolts was not tightened enough, but this does not seem the problem. The ax is broken. On foot I cover the last 4 miles, to the city, I decide to skip the visit of the paya. It already is dark when I arrive at the bicycle repairman. A 12 year old kid puts in a new ax. I think he does a lousy job, the owner tells me to return the next morning when it is light and he will do it properly. The first four hotels I visit I am not allowed to stay, because they do not have a permit to accommodate foreigners. The fifth does allow me. In the evening I am invited by a bunch of girls to join their dinner. I get these honours because they think I am handsome and want to be my girlfriend. It is good for the ego, but after a while I get enough of it and leave. When leaving the restaurant I nearly break my knee as I drop one and half meters down in the sewer right outside. Fortunatly only my shoes are covered in shit. One of the cool things of Myanmar is that transportation relies still very much on animals. In the western world you would see this kind of transportation only used by tourists, here it is widely used by the locals.
In Mandalay I manage to play a game of football again with some local kids. We play barefooted on a sandy field covered with rocks. Winner remains on the pitch. After an hour, still undefeated I leave with hurting feet. I book the slow boat to Bagan which leaves the next morning at 5:30AM. In and around Bagan I make a little trip by bike with fellow travelers through to look at some of the thousands of paya’s. At first Hilton, an Aussie, takes us on a route to where we see no paya’s at all. If it had not been for Helen, from Norway we would have cycled a couple of hours without seeing one. Now we turn and go down the hill to places where there are paya’s in spades. Here we are reunited with the English couple we had lost earlier, they knew where they were going. At the end of the afternoon we are racing to get to a paya we can climb to see the sunset from. Now we loose Hilton, but we all meet again in town. Helen is leaving at 4:30AM next morning and decides not to go to sleep before that. Hilton and I decide to keep her company aslong as a couple of beers join the company as well. Before we know it is time to say goodbye. The harder part of travelling. I go to sleep for a couple of hours, before I leave also. Before I can leave I have to try to solve the problem with the middle sprocket. It's tooth seem to worn to grip the chain. Ofcourse I cannot do anything about it and leave anyway. After a few km the largest sprocket goes too, which leaves me only the smallest. In combination with the use of only the 3 lightest ones at the back, makes cycling a maddening experience, especially downhill. At the end of the afternoon I finally find a man who has something lying from an old bike. He puts it on and tests it for me. Considering the options he does a good job, but I am only able to use only the 2 smallest sprockets and the crank is bend, which makes pedalling a bit incoonvenient. Still it beats cycling in the lightest gear all the time. It is already dark when I am invited to stay at someones house. Half the village comes by to have a look at the white guy. Unfortunately also a government oficial comes by and I can see he makes my host uneasy. I decide to leave. It is pitch dark and I do not see anything. I cycle in some potholes before I finally find a sandy spot to put up my musquito net. I am afraid to stop in a grass because of the snakes. The next morning I check my front fork and what I expected is true, broken again. I can still cycle with it, but obviously have to be careful with higher speeds and bumps. I decide not to brake with the front brake. Without much problems I manage to reach Magway.

To Myanmar?

2006-11-16T14:58:00.000+01:00

Instead of only having dinner with Susu, I am also joined by two Swiss, Roger and Mireille. We have a nice evening in a restaurant, which ends suddenly when Mireille has an attack of stomach problems. It is time for us to leave anyway, we are the only ones left. On Wednesday morning I walk to the consulate to retrieve my passport, when I return I meet Roger & Mireille on their way out. I quickly get my bag and together we go for a breakfast after which we leave for the bus station. We miss our stop and when walking back I notice someone trying to pickpocket from Mireille's bag with a pair of tweezers. I grab the guy in his neck and make sure he has not stolen anything and push him away. At the bus station we search for a bus to go to the proper Dali and when we have that confirmed we buy the tickets and embark. After four and half hour we are surprised to find out the bus does not go further then the wrong Dali. We try for 15 minutes to have our bus ticket for the rest of the trip paid for by the chauffeur, but of course no results. Mireille even goes to the police, but although our ticket indicates the other Dali, the police officer says we are wrong. So we end up paying for the additional 17 km ride, which is only 1.5 RMB. When the bus arrives I get a very warm and loud welcome, 2 of the 3 girls I met in Lijiang are in the bus. After missing the proper bus stop again we walk to the Old Dali Inn (No. 5) where I have left most of my stuff. When checking in I am surprised by Mart, a Dutch guy I met in Almaty. He has arrived just an hour before me from Lijiang. One of the girls insists of showing her hotel room to me and together with Mart, Mireille and Roger we have look after which we have dinner and drinks together. I had planned to leave the nineth, but at the breakfast I decide I to stay another day. During the day I take it easy, I sew ribbons on the panniers so I can tie them to the bike to prevent them from getting in to my wheels. At night Mart and I walk back to our courtyard and find 2 Japanese and 2 Chinese drinking wine and beer. We are invited to join. Around 2 I go to bed, the plan is still to leave in the morning Mart and a Japanese guy stay out side but soon go to bed when one of the employees gets very angry about the noise we have been making. I thought we were rather quiet, must have been the beer then.In the morning I pack my bags, I then realize I have no clue where I left my only key, the key to my bikelock. I unpack everything to no avail. I repack everything, I wil just have to cut my lock. My eye falls on my wallet, in which I find my key. Sometimes I am more organised than I expect. After breakfast and saying goodbye to the Swiss, Mart and some others I have met, I climb up my bike and ride south. In the wrong Dali I try to exchange some of my Euro travelerscheques into USD. The woman behind the counter is angry with me because the cheques are in such a bad shape, she changes them anyway, not into USD but into RMB. She says that it is not possible, great, could she not have said this before changing? She tells me only a local can change the RMBs into USD. I ask some people in the bank to change it for me and I offer them 50 RMB for it. Eventually I am told not to bother the customers and I leave. I had expected to have some leisurely cycling to Ruili, the town I want to cross the border, this is a slight misconception. I have to take the B-road and this one is not so well maintained and has much more climbs in it than the express way. Most of the second half of the day I am climbing. My frustration is that I am all the time 50 meters below the comb, but I never reach it. I am going up, but the mountains around me also.November 11th is again a tough day. I try to take it more easy though and decide to take a little siesta. The consequence of that and my little unplanned detour, is that I do not reach Baoshan today. I end up in a little village 30 km away of this bigger town. I order a huge meal, 3 dishes plus rice and when I am finished I am glad the owner offers me to stay above the restaurant, I am hardly capable of anything anymore. I do take apart my camera, because it has been acting funny during the day. I think sweat got into it and now it says it cannot read my cards. When I put it back together it is still not working great, but for 2 out of 3 cards it works. The 12th I am totally unmotivated to cycle and I park my bike in Baoshan for the day. Not before my bike is totally covered in mud. I had to go through a mud pool of at least 10 cm deep, so even my shoes are covered.Not far outside Baoshan I have to go down over a wet dirt road. The mud flies all around and on me. Worse is that both my panniers go into the wheel and both need to be repaired. First the thread breaks and on the next stitch the needle breaks. I ask one of the women working on their little water service for trucks if she has a needle for me. I get three and a stronger thread. When I am done sewing I am invited to have dinner with them and when I leave I am offered two mandarins. Although I have only cycled 10 km until 13:00 I manage to do 95 at the end of the day and I had a new speed record, 51 seconds for a km. Not a bad day after all. The intention was to camp but I end up sleeping again in the restaurant I have dinner in. It is a dinner by candle light as there is no power.Finally cycling goes as I like it, more down than up and smooth. When I go off the road to have a quiet lunch break, all of a sudden I can move my handle bar in any direction without the front wheel changing direction. After closer inspection it becomes clear that the tube that connects the fork with the handlebar is broken. I am lucky again that this has not happened when I am going down the mountain with over 60 km an hour. After lunch I walk back to the road and first cycle slowly in the same direction I was going. After a couple of km I find a house and ask if I can weld my fork somewhere. The man tells me I best go back to the last village. In the village I take the front part of my bicycle apart and search for a welder. Soon he is found and on my instructions he repairs the fork. I am happy with the result and put my bike back together and get back to cycling. This night I do camp. I find a nice spot, next to a little stream surrounded by bamboo bushes far from the road.November 15th I finally reach Ruili. The day I arrive I don't do much useful, the next day I intend to arrange my guide to take me through the first 100 km of Myanmar, where I am not allowed to roam freely. To my surprise I cannot find any travelagent that arranges trips into Myanmar. I decide to go to the border in the hope I meet someone who can help me. I see a Jeep with the text "Beauty Myanmar" on it's side. I ask the chauffeur if he is a guide. He says he is not but he has a number for me, I can call when I am at the Myanmar side of the border and then this women will come to guide me. I thank him and cycle back to town. On my way back I am accompanied by a scooterist, who also speaks English. I ask him if he knows any travel agents that go into Myanmar. He brings me to a travel agent, but all they can give me is a number of a woman I can call when at the Birmese side of the border. At least I now have a number coming from two independent sources, it gives a little bit of comfort. After that I pay another visit to the bank of china to get USD. Again the same story, I can get EUR for my RMB. Again I end up asking locals to exchange the money for me. This time the story ends better. A woman calls a friend who is willing to change the money into USD against a decent rate. We make the exchange in the bank building. I hope the notes are not counterfeit. Tomorrow the plan is to go to the border and arrange for a guide (and permit?) there. If I cannot find any guide I might find some nice military people who want to take me through this zone, because I won't be able to go back to China.

Kunming

2006-11-09T10:36:00.000+01:00

In the morning of the second I left, but not after changing the the tube of the rear tyre and having a dumpling breakfast. After cycling half an hour I arrive at a lake Andre and I had wished to visit, because of local Naxi villages, but could not find. Away from the lake the road goes up steep now and then, but fortunately not for long. The rest of the day it is going up and down, it feels like more up than down, though. At the end of the day I have a tough climb, but get instant reward with a nice descent in which I am faster than the bus. Around 17:30 I stop in village and the place I ask if there is a hotel around, turns out to be one. I carry my bike and luggage to my room and fall lazily on the bed, which I only leave to prepare my noodle soup with the thermo with hot water. The Godfather part 1 is showing on tv and I watch it until a power failure makes everything dark. Soon a generator is started, but I guess the satelite dish is not connected to it, so the screen remains blank. In the morning I try to set my saddle slightly higher, but is to stuck, so I give up. It is not that important, I 've been cycling with this setup for 5 months. The reason I want it higher is that one of my shins hurt and I think it might come from the position of my foot on the pedal. After a 20 km I have breakfast, eggplant and rice. A drawback of cycling on my own is that I can order less dishes. When with two I got more variety in the meals, because we could share. Still breakfast tastes good. At the end of the morning I reach the big lake Dali is lying on. I decide to take the eastern route, the big road goes west around the lake and is much better, but also much busier. The fishermen put their nets on the road full of shrimps (?) to dry. After cycling alongside the lake I see a ferry crossing the lake. I ask if also a ferry sails more south, the man does not seem to understand, at least the only visible reaction he gives is pointing at a sign which shows a few Chinese characters and 10 yuan price. I decide to read the few copied pages of the LP about this region I got of Andre. I find out that there are two Dali's and that I was heading to the wrong one. I already found it strange no ferries would go to this popular destination. I go back to the guy who was so helpfull earlier and try again if the 10 yuan is for crossing the lake. I get the impression it is and carry my bike 50 meters down, only to find out that the crossing is 130 yuan, apparently the 10 was only for entering the park. I say I already I have paid ten and that is all I am going to pay. Of course they do not understand a word I say. I take up my bike to indicate I will walk back up if they do not lower the price. Soon it is down to 50, still much to high but an improvement. We end up at 30, not a bargain, but I can live with it and it saves me a climb up and a 30km ride. Dali is a bit of a disappointment. I am comparing the city with Lijiang and it is in a totally different league. It is accustomed to tourists though, when I sit down on a bench a woman well above 50 in local dress comes to me and asks if I want hashies, a few moments later a slighly younger woman asks me the same. In the guesthouse are a lot of westerners. To one of them I lend my bike the next day. I only leave on Sunday to Kunming and I do not feel like cycling. When I get the bike back the handlebar is very loose again, but I will deal with that when I am back from Kunming. After a five hour bus ride I reach Kunming where I take my stay in the Camellia hotel, I had read the Birmese consulat was there at well and that would save me a lot of walking. Ofcourse the information is not accurate, but with some help of the girl at the reception I am able to easily find it. I find Kunming a rather boring city, but in the hostel I do meet a Swiss girl I was sharing a room with in Dali and we have dinner together monday evening. She has started cycling to Vietnam today. Tonight I will have dinner with a very beautiful Birmese girl. She would prefer I would not visit Birma because of the regime. She and her family are politically active, which has not made their life easier, she had to flee Birma and her father is in jail. Although I feel more guilty now, I still intend to go.

Gorgious Leaping Tiger

2006-11-05T20:34:00.000+01:00

We had planned to visit 2 famous lakes not far from Zhongdian on our way south. When we arrive at the gate (!) we find out that we have to pay 180 RMB and we can only go by bus. We do not want to pay the fee and we do not want to go by bus either. Arguments are to no avail, so we turn around and continue cycling. A few km further, in the next valley we try to follow a muddy path that might also take us to the lakes. After half an hour we give up our attempt, the path got worse/disappeared and eventually we would have to climb the surrounding hills and return to the road. Although we end the day at an altitude of 2800 m, we have also climbed 1300 m. The 26th we have a short day to the tiger leaping gorge, with a 20 km long descent. The 45 km which we thought it would be turned out 70 but still the higher temperature and oxygen level because of the lower altitude make it a nice ride. We stay at Sean's Guest House which is packed with cyclists. Two groups made it their stop. They are on a guided tour through Yunnan by bike. Jealously Andre and I watch how their bikes are cleaned and repaired for them. Our bikes would like this treatment as well, but we are just happy we can relax and just put them on the balcony, at least they have a great view on the gorge. Our clothes are more lucky as we decide to give them a short wash. In the evening the guides of the groups organise a quiz, Andre and I join Kristin to form a team. We don't do well, but probably it did not help we lost the paper with the answers of the 1st round.The next day we climb to a waterfall and although the gorge is a popular destination we do not meet any tourists on our climb up. Later we go all the way down to the Jiangtse. From the guest house it looks like a docile little river, but at the water level the power and force become very clear and now it is only carrying half the water is does during the monsoon. The local families have created the path down to the river and want to be compensated. The annoying thing is that when I am almost at the bottom, they come with their claim. Reluctantly I pay 10 RMB. We decide to take a different route up and we are surprised we are stopped for the second time, by a different family with a demand of an extra donation of 10 RMB. We say we already have paid and think that it has been enough. They won't let us pass and we sit down to wait. Of course we can ever win a contest on patience, these people have all the time in the world, so in the end we come to a compromise and pay half. It is not that we cannot miss the money, but I think they should have charged us at the beginning once. Now it could be possible every hundred meters someone asks us for money. Around 11 at night a row starts under our balcony, at first it is just yelling, but when a woman's voice cries out she has been hit I jump out of bed and go down to see to it that there will be no fighting. I am surprised to find the owner of the guesthouse, Sean, with a stick on one side of a table and a woman hiding on the other side. I put myself between Sean and the woman while the shouting goes on. After 10 minutes the danger of any violence seems gone and freezing, I was just in my shorts, I turn back to bed. I should have taken the stick from Sean, but the next day I hear that someone coming from the toilet did, after which the woman went to bed also. The woman turned out to be Sean's wife and said she would report it to the police.A few of the cyclists have warned us for the deep descent to the river for the ferry and advised us to have our stuff to be carried up and down. On the way down we manage to stay in the saddle and roll/cycle down. When taken across, the ferrymen offer to take our luggage on a horse for 20 RMB, leaving us only to push up our bikes. I am glad we were not so stubborn that we insisted on pushing everything up, it was tough enough with just the bike. This was not the hardest of the day, after a few km of dirt road, the road turns in cobbled stones and at the same time goes up from 1900 m to 3500 m. The larger part of the rest of the day we climb, averaging about 5 km an hour. When we finally reach the top and the end of the stones we have a little cheer. Unfortunately the stones turn up again when we go down, spoiling the going down party. When I make a stop to put some human fertilizer on the barren ground I slip and slide down a couple of meters, I manage to get hold of a branch an get some grip with the rest of my body, preventing a 200 m slide down. A bit shaken and scratched I make an other attempt to improve the soil on slightly safer grounds. The plan was to reach Lijiang today but we are both a bit tired and decide to camp. We cycle into a little forest until we are stopped by a little river 10 m below. We are still contemplating if and how we are going to cross over the trunk, when a police car arrives. We both expect to be told to not camp here, but they are just worried about us, and tell us it is a dangerous area. We say we are alright, but get the telephone number of the policeman. We rather had had the telephone number of the beautiful policewoman, which would have made more sense anyway as she was the one speaking English. When the police leaves we carry over our stuff, item by item. At night I put my woolen sweater at my feet to get them a little bit above the cold ground. I hope this prevents me from getting cold feet. The next morning I awake with warm feet, so my little experiment has worked. Unfortunately the trunk over the river is still frozen, so too slippery to cross. We wait half an hour for most of the ice to melt and then move our stuff in a joint action back to the other side. After a short climb it is all the way down to Lijiang. Did it take 7 hours to do 35 km yesterday, now we easily do it within the hour. In Lijiang we find a guest house right in the centre of the old town for decent price. From Lijiang Andre is going to Beijing by plane and I will be going south to Dali, but before it is time to part we stay a few days in the touristic town. I get my extension on my visa in only five minutes, without any requirement of additional information. I also have the fork of my bike repaired, which was almost broken and in the process have the cables on my front break replaced. We also finally find the energy to give the bikes a well deserved cleaning. On November 1 Andre leaves for Beijing, I stay for the night and will depart for Dali the next day.

Passing out?

2006-10-21T16:52:00.000+02:00

October 18th becomes a rest day. On the evening before, when I head for the huge monastery complex I am spotted by Enrique. He and Chele have arrived much later than they had told me they would. Enrique says he is waiting for a swiss guy they met earlier, who probably will arrive the next day. This gives me time to rest a bit, do some shopping and visit the monastery. The 19th we meet at 9 to have breakfast, unfortunately Chele is not feeling well and is not capable of cycling. Enrique decides to stay with his wife. The Swiss guy, Andre and I decide to get going, but not after a decent breakfast of potato pancakes. It is close to 11 when we finally mount our bikes. Andre's natural speed is close to mine, so we cycle together for the whole road, this in contrast with Chele and Enrique where we waited for each other at certain points. At the end of the afternoon we pass the first pass at 4696m. At the top we put on our gloves and hats (I have bought mine in Litang) and head down. The next pass is showing is already visible. We do not feel like climbing much more for the day, so we decide to set op camp on the plain in between the passes. We push our bikes for about a quarter of an hour and pitch the tent behind a huge boulder, so we cannot be seen from the road. When Andre sets up the tent I gather dry yakshit and branches for the campfire. We do not have much water so we limit us to eat only 3 noodle soups for dinner. It takes some effort to get the shit properly burning, the first half an hour it mainly creates a lot of smoke, but after that, it burns well and gives a lot of heat.
The next morning the tent is frozen, we wait with packing it till the sun enters the valley to defrost it and us. When back on the road we have to start climbing right away but fortunately we have not descended to much the previous day, so we reach the pass relatively easily. The pass is actually more a large plain with little lakes. The wind is not helping us today as it is against us, so even on the way down we have to peddle. At noon we reach Sangdui, where we have a delicious meal, although they forget to serve the cauliflower dish. Still the rice, chicken dish and the spinach dish are more than enough. Just outside Sangdui the road goes up to the next pass, at 4800m. The climb is very steep and we have to take several stops before we get there. Andre had read somewhere that some guys had done the same route as us to Xiangzhan (never sure about town names in China, so could be different) in one day, so we think we should be able to do that as well. We learn again that passes always appear closer by than they really are. When you think only two hairpins and then finally down you discover after one hairpin that the road goes up for an other few corners and then still it is further than you think. When we finally make it we go down in quick. In no time we have lost 1700 m of hard fought for altitude. At 19:00, it already is dark we finally reach Xiangzhan. We are welcomed by Chele who has taken the bus from Litang, Enrique has decided to cycle but has left one day after us. Today we have cycled nett 8 hours and covered 129 km, not a bad day, but we are totally exhausted. Andre finds out that the guys he read of had taken a different route and went to a different town altogether.
The 21st becomes a rest day again. Andre and I visit the monastery and after that we pick up Chele to have breakfast. A large part of the afternoon we lie down on a field in the middle of farmers working the land with yaks and plough.
The next morning we leave at 8, without Chele who decides to wait for Enrique. The first 22m are leisurely down, but then the real stuff starts. We have to climb to a pass that is at 85 km from where we departed over an unpaved road. The first part is not so bad, but when we reach the proper altitude we are only 50 km away from Xiangzhan, still 35 m to go of up and down over horrible roads with again strong head wind. With our last bit of strength we reach the pass slightly after 18:00. It is could and windy, after a few pictures and putting on some warm clothes, we go down as fast as possible. The road is still unpaved and has huge holes though, so we have to be careful. Soon it becomes dark, but we have not seen a proper place to camp. We decide to go down in walking pace with Andre leading, as he has a little light to guide us until the next village. After 5 km we see a house and lucky us it is a binguan (hotel) and are welcomed. We get a nice meal for 22RMB are invited for beers and can sleep for free.
In the morning upon leaving I discover my rear tire is empty. I pump it up in the hope it stays hard. I feel no rapid decrease in hardness and we cycle of. At noon we stop for lunch. While Andre prepares the noodle soup I repair the tube, which has a tiny puncture at the rim side. Probably got a few hard hits when I was going down fast through a hole. On the way down one of my panniers gets a few times into the wheel. Not a big problem, but the seam lets loose and soon there is a gap of 30 cm, I decide to sew it at th spot and in 15 minutes all is repared. At 18:00 we find a nice camping spot at the river. Dry wood in abundance so we have another campfire after we have eaten our noodle soup. Andre has a nice treat. He still has a bar of Swiss chocolate, which we wolf away.
Although we are at lower altitude in the morning it is freezing. With hat and gloves we eat our breakfast; hot water mixed with powder yak milk, sugar, porridge and some left over moon cookies. Delicious, when hungry. The ice cold fingers and toes do not stop us from going up a mountain again. It should be an easy day, Shangrila should not be far a way. Still the bad road prevents that we get there without any effort (the road to heaven is not to be known easy anyway;-). We decide we have earned a proper shower and some luxury, so we check in a relatively expensive hotel. When I unload I notice my luggage carrier is broken. I screw it loose and go to a place where they can weld it. It takes some time, but when found it is done in 10 seconds for no charge. Now it is time for a well deserved and needed shower.
At night, just when I am in bed the phone rings, someone is talking to me in Chinese. I tell the person in Dutch I do not understand a thing of it and hang up. A few minutes later, someone knocks on the door. I open in my shorts to find two girls there. One enters immediately and tells the other to follow. The first talks a lot but I have no idea where she is talking about. All becomes clear when she shifts to sign language. She makes the international sign for sexual intercourse. I ask Andre if he has any interest in one of them, but Andre is already half a sleep and is hardly aware what is going on. I push both girls out of the room and go to sleep. I see the girls the next morning again, they must work in the hotel, the question is as what?

To Litang

2006-10-21T15:36:00.000+02:00

The first night after leaving Chengdu, I do not find a decent place to stay. The road is enclosed in between the mountains and where there would have been space to set up camp, people have their houses, gardens and land. I finally find a rope bridge that seems to lead to an unoccupied piece of flat ground. After pushing my bike over the bridge and up the slippery hill, I find a nice spot, where I can spend the night. Soon the night falls and I see some tiny lights. At first I think someone is coming from far with a little torch, but soon I realise they are fireflies, the first time I see them. Soon after it starts to rain, but my tent is set up well and all inside stays dry. After a while my shoulder gets cold and I find out that one of the seems in the tarp is leaking. Fortunately I can put my raincape over that part over the tent, which stops the leaking.
The day starts with one and a half hour climbing, before I reach a very long tunnel (Erlangshan tunnel) after which I go down for 15km. It is nice to go down, but frustrating at the same time, when you know later you will have to climb again. Still going down for me is the reward for climbing. After lunch I proceed to Kanding, but although not to far I have used most of my energy already and the almost non-stop rising road pushes me to the limit. At the end of the afternoon I reach the town, where I start to search for a budget hotel. After 2 hours of searching the cheapest hotel I found is 80RMB. May be for European standards not expensive, in China it would be my most expensive overnighting. I cannot find a cheaper one and as it already is dark (I do not want to cycle outside a city after dark) I go back to that hotel. It is very luxurious, I have my own bathroom and hot shower with water also coming from the side.
The next morning I continue with what I have been doing the day before, climbing. Five hours after I have left Kanding I reach the pass at 4298m. At this hight you cannot miss there is much less oxygen. everything I do, I'll try to do as slowly as possible to not get out of breath. I hang around the pass for a while. People want to be with me in a picture. It carresses my ego that people ask to be in a picture with me, so I am happy to pose. After a while it starts snowing, which is for me the sign to search for warmer places i.e. go down. Uptill now the road was pretty good, but halfway down the road gets to apalling quality, shaking my bones and bike. The shaking also makes my pedal problem reappear, but with the nail and a stone this is soon fixed. In the meantime I am surrounded by a group of women. Communicating is hard but I manage to get their address so I can send the picture by mail (I hope that the thing they wrote is their address). When I ask them where I can eat they point down the road, so I peddle on till I am in a town where they even have 2 restaurants and a guesthouse. I had enough for the day so I decide to stay for the night. After dinner I am invited to the home of an old man to eat some more. Always hungry I join him and finish the day with a bottle of beer.

My cycling buddies Chele and Enrique were headed for Litang as well. They had counted they arrived there the tenth, but I figure they might have miscalculated the distance too. On the 17th I cycle 10km when I reach a decent town. I have figured out that I will not reach Litang in the next three days if I keep on cycling so I decide to take a bus, to have some chance to hook up with Chele and Enrique. The only available spots in the bus are right at the end and I soon find why. At every bump, I am catapulted into the air. At several occasions my head hits the ceiling (40 cm higher than my head). The worse ones are the doubble bumps where, when landing you are immediatly are shot up again. The forces are that large (and the material that weak) that a seat in the row before me breaks under the pressure. Halfway I manage to secure a seat in the front of the bus, which makes the world of a difference.a> Late in the afternoon I reach Litang, with my kidneys still on the right spot.

Chengdu again

2006-10-15T16:35:00.000+02:00

On monday morning I go to the trainstation to get a trainticket back to Chengdu for the next day. I of course could have done that much earlier, but my motto still seems to be "never do today what you can do tomorrow". Everytime when this strategy does not give the best results, I am determined to do things as early as I can, next time. I buy a ticket, even a sleeper, but only top bunks are available. Those are less desirable, because first you can not look out of the window and second the ceiling is very low, which makes sitting up impossible. I had planned to go to the Thai embassy, to inquire about entry points, but postpone that till when I am in Kunming, which seems early enough.

On the next day, I finally can get back my passport, hopefully with the required sticker and stamps. I secretely hope they will let the extension start on the 10th, but no such luck. It starts at where the previous one ended, so I will have to extend again the 30th. When I have my passport I head to the maglev station, which is only 2 stops away with the subway. I take a 2-way ticket to the airport which we reach in about 6 minutes, I take the same train back as I have nothing to do on the airport. So after 15 minutes I am back at where I started, 80RMB poorer and more experienced in riding trains. At night Marieke and I have dinner for the last time in our regular restaurant. In the train I want to update my journal, but my new book does not allow the 2 ballpoints put their ink in it. The other thing to do besides sleeping is working on my shirt and repairing my panniers. The people always find it very funny when I are stitching my stuff, this time they try to give me advise. I do not follow it, I have my own technique and I am happy with it. The second evening I am invited to share a bottle of disgusting Chinese liquor. After half a bottom it does not taste that bad or I do not taste anymore. In the wagon are two deaf girls and communication goes best with them, they are used to sign language and do not rattle on in Chinese to me. Instead we do a lot of pictionary. One of the girl warns me not to drink to much, she probably knows it is shit. People seem to like me, I get all sorts of food and drinks offered, this when they were making fun of me earlier, with pointing at me and then laughing. It may be because they think I am very poor, walking around in clothes which are falling apart and then repairing them.

In Chengdu I go back to the hostel where I stayed before. This was a rather smart thing to do, as I had left my bike and luggage there. Fortunately they still are, although it takes me half an hour to retrieve my backpack. I had planned to stay a while in Chengdu to at least see the pandas, but now I decide to leave the next day. I feel a little bit rushed. I have only 16 days before I have to reextend my visa and I figure I only can do that in a big city. But it might take me longer to reach one, considering I will go west into the mountains. Besides I sleep horrible in the hostel, now two Chinese hold a snore contest, which the man closest to the door wins by a narrow margin. In the morning at 5 a totally smashed boy comes in and right away falls a sleep on the last vacant bed. He does not snore, but he is wearing his shoes, which are covered in shit. The room smells awful, so at 6 I get up, pack my bags and leave.

Shanghai

2006-10-06T07:42:00.000+02:00

In the weekend, after finishing visa business, we stroll through the centre. We are not the only ones, it probably is the most crowded weekend in the year. October first the birth of communistic China is celebrated and it seems all Chinese want to do this on Nanjing road. I can still look over the masses as the average Chinese reaches till my shoulder. During the week Marieke has to work hard on her graduation project and I have to entertain myself. Usually we have lunch together at 11:30 and we meet at 18:30 to find a place to dine. On wednesday I finally buy new shoes and throw away my huge boots. When I return to the campus I head straight for the football pitch with artificial grass. It already is crowded, with lots of people with balls. Two games are played on half a field. Initially I stand at the side line trying to pick up some loose balls, to show I am not a total moron with the ball. It takes to long before I am invited so I ask people if they speak English. After a few negative answers or shrugs with shoulders I find someone to converse with. We end up passing eachother the ball and when his team is up for playing a game I am invited to join. Each teams stands until the opposing team scores against them. We win the first match, but I can not prevent that the next team scores against us. I can not enjoy any rest, I am invited to play with the new team, which I gladly accept. By this time I already have a huge blister on the heel of my left foot. After 3 games won we are swapped with the third team, but in five minutes we are called to duty again. Most of us are still tired and soon we are defeated. After two and a half hour playing we call it a day. Now my foot realy hurts and my upperlegs soon are stiff, I feel and move like an old man.

There is no time to shower or change clothes, I have to meet Dave, from Urumqi, at People's square exit 1 at seven. Dave is already waiting and together with Marieke we head on Dave's advice to a Japanese restaurant. Although relative expensive, we enjoy a wonderfull meal. Dave has just returned from Japan and orders the dishes. We had to pay 3 times 98RMB and got all we could eat and drink. The different dishes keep on coming, one even more delicious than the other. The (Japanese) beer and prune(?) wine also taste great. Besides enjoying the food it is great to see Dave again. When finished, we take the taxi home, subway stops running quite early.

The next morning I feel much more older than the one day I have aged since the day before. I hardly can get out of my bed. Wearing my left shoe is killing, to day will be a day I will definitely do/walk not much. In the evening I manage to pull my body to a nearby restaurant where I am invited by Marieke to dine with her student colleagues. The bill is paid by the professor, although not present. I am Dutch enough to show up at something for free. Before going to Starbucks to have some coffee in town, spending all the saved money again, Marieke puts on someting warmer and I meet Qiqi, a law student. She wants to be in a picture with me, to which I do not object. She is so kind to send it to me later. On the way back from town I take of my shoes and walk on my socks, giving my heel a little rest and in the meantime spreading the hideous odour coming from my feet. If you hear of an environmental disaster in Shanghai, you know where it came from.

Visa, never easy

2006-10-05T08:10:00.000+02:00

The busride from Zoige takes longer than I expect. I had hoped to arrive in Chengdu at three in the afternoon so I could get my visa extension even the same day. This was a slightly to optimistic view. When the sun starts to set I am finally able to disembark from the bus. I take out my bike and the wheels. Early in the morning in the pooring rain I had been trying to put my bike into the cargospace, with initially no succes. Almost al space was occupied and people kept putting in their huge bags. No one wanted to help me, but I was determined to keep on pushing and moving stuff until my bike was in. When I took of the wheels, fortunately my wrench was in one of my side pockets of my backpack, I managed to get everything in after reshuffling for 5 minutes. When finally I have my bicycle reassembled and my by bags strapped to it, it already is dark. I ask some bystanders where the centre is and start cycling in the direction indicated. After 1 hour I still have not reached it, I get the impression I am cycling round it. Then I find a guy who indicates he will get his bicycleto lead me to the centre. After a few minutes he returnes and 15 minutes later I am on the central square of Chengdu. Dave had advised me to stay at Hollies Hostel, the problem was that I did not have the address. My brother came to the rescue, he responds quickly on my request and after asking several locals I end up at the desired spot. I inquire how long it will take to get my visa extension and if I still can get a train ticket to Shanghai? With both answers I am not happy. According to the girl behind the counter (Holly?) says it takes five workingdays to get a visa extension and that there are no traintickets to Shanghai to coming week. After the good news I decide to have some breakfast, lunch and dinner. When I return to the hostel I am invited by two Americans to drink a couple of beers in the cafe on the 3rd floor. Later a Dutch couple joins us for a while. When there is no beer left at 2 we decide to search for our beds.

After breakfast with the 2 Americans, I take the bus to the trainstation to verify the girls claim. Halfway the ride a chinese girl indicates that I should switch to an other bus and just when I have done so, the bus refuses to start. Together with 2 others I push the bus and after a couple of tries the engine is working again. At the trainstation I am overwhelmed by the number of people queuing up. I estimate 2000 chinese are waiting for the 34 ticketboxes. One, number 11, has a sign "For Foreign guest" and I queue up. One and a half hour later I am served and to my surprise I can get on the next train and I have the option to get a hard sleeper. I promptly pay and hurry back to the hostel. The train will leave in one and a half hour and my hostel is on the other side of town. An hour later I am back on the station. I do not like taking taxis but this time I make use of them and fortunately they step on it.

I soon discover that a hard sleeper is much more comfortable than the hard seat. The 38 hour journey will, not even remotely be as hard as the 20 hour trip to Lanzhou earlier. It is a pity, however that the man sleeping in the bed next to me is snoring like there is no tomorrow. The windows are trembling in their slots everytime he breaths in. It is not till very early I finally fall a sleep. I kill time by working on my guru shirt, the number of holes do not seem to diminish though and reading the last part of my book of Jules Verne. The second morning, September 29, I arrive in Shanghai. Although Marieke has advised me to take subway line 1 and 2, I think I know better and I take line 3. For a change I am right and I text Marieke, she can pick me up at Zongshan Park, when she likes.

In the afternoon we go to a PSB for my visa. When we finally find it, a doormen shows us a note which says I have to go to a different place. It already is close to 16:30 so we take a taxi to get me there before the weekend (and the week holiday) starts. I am swiftly served but apparantly I need a yellow registration form, before they will process my request, fortunately they are also open the next day and my visa seems to be still valid on that day. This form is to be got at the local police office. Although the woman behind the counter assures me it is simple to acquire, the next day this statement proves to be a little beside the truth. After going back and forth to the policestation with different people and documentation, we give up to try to have Mariekes appartment as the place I stay. I end up renting a room in a hotel, where without any problem I get my yellow registration form. We hurry to 1500 Mingsheng road, where now without problems my case is accepted. I can pick up my passport on the 10th!! Because I only had a visa for one month, they are not willing to extend it with more than that, meaning that within 20 days after receiving my extension I will have to reapply for the last time.

Langmusi

2006-09-25T06:13:00.001+02:00

21st September we get going again. We cycle through a region where we have to pay an entrance fee to get in. After a few km we get of the paved road and onto a smoothly rising dirt road. We now have entered the world of the yak and sheep. Along the road we have seen so many sheep being slaughtered and we wondered where all the sheep come from, now we know. Around lunchtime we are invited to have lunch with a Tibetan at his tent. 500m from the road surrounded by yaks, sheep, pigs and little Tibetan kids, we get dry bread and butter in hot water. Not the best lunch ever, but company is worth something as well. Just when we are searching for a proper place to camp we are invited by a Tibetan on a motorcycle to eat and sleep with him. Halfway (?) his home he overtakes us and we are not able to find him again. We decide to have dinner in the village and then cycle a few km back to camp.

In the morning we are nearly over run by a herd of sheep. In the town after breakfast, I do an investment in my travel gear by buying panniers. All of my stuff still fitted in or on my backpack, but while cycling this hardly is accessible. With the panniers I really start to look like a proper cyclist. Later in a bigger city I want to have a rack constructed for the front wheel, so I can put them there, having a better weight distribution. Today we end up in a very small town, with to our surprise a decent hotel. In the evening we are invited in the owners house and I get a lesson Tibettan from one of the daughters.

The next day we reach Langmusi. Underway we stop at an Tibettan festival, nothing much happens. A lot of Tibettan families are sitting on the grass. It is more a social event I guess, after waiting an hour for something to happen I get going again. Chele and Enrique already had left. Langmusi is a very touristic town and although there are some nice buddhist and moslim buildings, the atmosphere is somewhat spoilt by the scores of white people walking by. At the same time it is nice to meet fellow travelers though. Sunday is a rainy day and we fill the day by writing, reading, washing and I of course work on my never ending project, my guru shirt. In the evening I say goodbye to Chele and Enrique, I am going to try to go to Shanghai to visit Marieke. For that I take the bus at 7 the next morning. On the way down from a pass we almost turnover. The mud road is so slippery that first we move sideways and then tilt dangerously to my side. Fortunately nothing happens and we continue to Zoige. I had hoped to get a connecting bus to Chengdu, but the only one leaves at 6 in the morning, which means I will stay the night in this boring town. That is why I am updating my blog I guess.

Xiahe

2006-09-20T13:23:00.002+02:00

In Xiahe I do not much but eating, sleeping and hanging around. It is a great place for it though. In Xiahe the streets are dominated by monks and people in rough Tibetan clothes. The faces of the people look battered by sun and cold. Tomorrow we will start cycling again, we are heading south.
The monastary.

This old lady makes an attempt to spin all 1200 prayerwheels at the monastary.

The guesthouse we stay is, apart from us, only populated by locals, these two people are my neighbours. We have taken some dry wood from them to light the stoves in our rooms. Unfortunately my stove was leaking, so all my things smell to smoke now, which is probably an improvement. This morning I tried to shower in an other guesthouse by giving the impression I stayed there. No problems emerged, but the water was freezing cold. I felt not so brave to jump under.

These 2 monks and the monkey in the middle were photographed by a third monk. The camera always is a great tool to make contact.

Company

2006-09-19T07:42:00.003+02:00

September 12th I buy a trainticket to Lanzhou. The train only departs at 1:45 at night so I have plenty of time to explore Hami. I am still not sure how I will bring my bike, but I am sure that will be clear later on. I arrive early at the station and I am indicated to go to an office to check in my bike. No one speaks English but after half an hour I have some tags on my bike and some receipt in my pocket. I hope they do not forget to put my bike on the train.

I am seated in the class hard-seated which is the lowest class. The seating is the same as in the African busses, 3 chairs left of the aisle and 2 to the right. Fortunately I am next to the aisle, so I can stretch my legs a little. Still I do not manage to sleep more than 15 minutes in a row and in the morning I do not know how to sit anymore. In the morning more people get of the train than and after a while I can put my legs on the opposing chair, allowing me to properly rest for a while. At 19:30 the train arrives in Lanzhou. When I go to the office to pick up my bike I meet Enrique and Chele a Spanish/Argentinian couple who also are cycling. They also were on the train but were so lucky to acquire hard-sleepers. They are going to stay at a hotel near the station and we agree to share a room, but first I have to pick up my bike. What I already feared has happened, my bike has not come on the train. I am assured though that it will arrive the same night at 3.

The three of us search for a hotel and manage the get a room for 50 RMB for the 3 of us. In the early morning I fetch my bike so we can cycle the same day in the direction of Xiahe. However we decide to postpone departure with one day and recuperate from the trainride and do some chores.

I do not know why they really do it, but on several spots they put straw or other grasslike materials on the road. May be they want it just to dry or it might be that they want to have it crushed by passing traffic. In the last case my bike is not of much help, although I am eating a lot lately.

It is not only my bike that needs constant attention, also the bikes of my fellow cyclists once in a while need some at the road repairs. Here Chele's bike gets its steering secured, an action I am not unfamiliar with as my bike has a habbit of loosening the bolts on my steering. Later Enriques bike got a problem with a wobbly pedal, not unsimular my pedal problems.

As can be seen is my technique slightly less sophisticated, but uptill now I manage to tighten the bolt for a couple of km. The longer I hammer the longer it sticks. May be in Xiahe I find a decent cycle repairshop to get rid of the problem for a long time.

Just a sorry attempt to catch the beauty of the views. If you really want to know how beautiful it is, you have to go your self I am afraid or find some one who can make decent pictures.

With our maps with Chinese characters we were almost always able to ask for the proper directions, only when leaving Lanzhou on the September 15th we are directed to a different town then we wished. Everything worked out quite fine and we think the route turned out for the better. At least we were cycling over a road not much travelled with great views.

The monastary is a few km from the road, at first it annoys me that the monk who invited us, underestimated the time to cycle there so much, but when we arrive I am happy we went.

We had anticipated to reach Xiahe on the 17th but rain and problems getting up early the last few days, make that we search refuge in a monastary for the night. The place we sleep is very luxurious, with satelite tv, dvd, a stove and nice wooden floors.

The next day we only have 40km ride left to Xiahe and although the sky looks like rain we manage to arrive with only a few drops hitting us. We check in a guesthouse near the famous monastary. It does not have shower facilities, which makes Enrique and I decide to built one in the courtyard with my tarp and some ropes. All goes well until Chele takes a shower. The wind suddenly picks up and the tarp almost blows away. Enrique comes to the rescue of his wife before she is left in the courtyard only covered in soap.

Crashed

2006-09-11T15:26:00.001+02:00

I finally find the strength to get up in the morning early enough to start cycling to the next destination. The goal is Hami, roughly 400km away. The first day I head east and visit a place where they have old tombs from 900AD. In one of them they still had the mummyfied corpses. In 5 minutes I have seen enough and the girls at the entry look at me surprised that I am already leaving. After a few km I am in Chaofang, this is supposed to be an interesting ancient Uighur city. I look in through the gate and I decide it is not worthwhile to pay the 3 Euro. I do wander around the little town though, which has the advantage of not being overcrowded by the busloads of Chinese tourists. From there I go to Tuyugou, where I should be able to find the 1000 Buddha caves.. I do not find that many caves, but it is a nicely located in the mountains. I am not allowed to take pictures in the caves, because that would damage the caves, according to the caretaker, who when seeing my camera keeps on following me everywhere. I can understand that maybe a flash would harm a picture, but fail to see how a picture taken without damages anything. It was not that great anyway. While cycling to Tuyugou my pedal problem plays up again. This time I try to fix it with a nail and a stone, but I cannot really get the bolt on the axes tight enough that it sticks. Every 5km I have to repeat the procedure. Just when I had finished it for the so manieth time, a trucker stops to take me with him. I tell him I want to go to Shanshan. Unfortunately the trucker does not stop there, but a few km later. I do not feel like turning round and keep on going. In a shop I buy cookies, they do not have bread and refill my bottles. I also find a bigger iron stick, that I can use for my pedals, the nail is bent. After a dozen km I arrive in a little town where I find a mechanic, with his chisel and hammer I try to secure the bolt for sure, but I do not try it as I also find a hotel.

The daughter(?) of the owner has, I guess, not seen a foreigner before, she tries to touch me every time she can. She insists on washing my hair and initially does not want to get out when I want to shower. After showering she grabs my clothes to wash them.

The next day almost immediately starts again with working on my pedals again. Now I keep hammering, with a big stone for half an hour and this seems to pay out. The wind is horrible today and I do not mind when a truck stops and takes me for 20km. After that I grab the backs of trucks when they pass me. This of course only works when they go slow, but fortunately there are enough climbs. The last truck I hang onto, stops after 15 minutes. I think he wants to shoe me off, instead he offers me a thick ribbon which he ties to the truck and he suggests I tie the other side to my bike or me. I do not like the idea to being tied to a truck if I fall, I or my bike will be dragged behind the truck for possibly a long time. I decide just to hold the ribbon, which is nicer to hold than the sharp steel edges of the truck. After being towed for a while, I decide I might put the ribbon through my frame and then hold it with my left hand, while it is on the handlebar. In case I fall, I can immediately let go and I will be relatively fine. The problem is to get the ribbon on the right location. One hand is occupied with holding the ribbon the other I need for holding the handlebar. Fortunately I have strong teeth and I manage to put the ribbon in my mouth, so I got towed on my teeth, while my right hand puts the free end through the frame to my left hand. My right hand takes over from my teeth and slowly releases the ribbon till finally I am towed via the frame. This works excellent, especialy when the speed goes up, I can have both hands on the handlebar. Then I notice that the knot at the truck side is just about to let go. I quickly pull my self to the truck and hold onto it directly again. I decide to try to tie the knot again and after 15 minutes of hard work I have the whole construction back to as I want it.

Everything keeps on going well until the trucker indicates he wants to pull up. I think he means he wants me to ride to the right of him. I go so far to the right that I am next to the truck, then when the truck goes over a little bump or accelerates slightly it gives a forward pull, with me on the end of the tight ribbon on the side of the truck, my bike is basically pulled to the left from underneath me. I let go of the ribbon to late and before I know it I am rolling over the asphalt. I am lucky, only scratches on my right side; knee, hip, elbow and sholder have abrevions. The bike is still ok, only this time the raincover and a side pocket of my bag have holes and the zipper of the bag of my camera is broken, the camera, miraculously is still working.

I guess the truckers feel sorry for me and they invite me to the truck and put my bike between the cabin and the rest of the truck. After 20km I have to get off, but I get grapes and apples for on the way. I cycle for 1 hour and then find a place with a little vegetation to sleep. I have made good progress today, only about 90 km to go to Hami.

The final kms to Hami I all cycle, not many trucks pass me and the ones that do are either full or just do not stop. In Hami it is more difficult to find people who speak English. I want to take the train from here to Lanzhou, but have no idea how I will get a ticket and make clear I have a bicycle. Well that is a worry for tomorrow.

Going down

2006-09-08T10:51:00.001+02:00

I don't know how far it is to Turpan, but I know, by bus it takes two and a half hour. I usually count on how many hours it takes by bus that many days it will take me to cycle. Today however I reach Turpan the same day. I just cannot find a suitable place to sleep. The road is rather boring although I come through the worlds largest windmill park, I read later. However none of the mills I see are working, but this could have something to do with the lack of wind. For a long while I see no one, the road I cycle is not open yet but (because of that) of very good quality. I do see these railroad workers pushing a rail along the tracks and women sweeping the sand of the road. This seems like a waste of time, but they probably have their reasons for this. Later I bump into a couple of camels. Note these have two bumps instead of the ones with one I saw earlier. When I reach the time I want to stop cycling for the day I am in the middle of an empty plain and there are no nice spots to stop. With 30km to go I stop at the side of the road and eat a little of my Chinese powerbar, sugar mixed with raisons and nuts all pushed in a huge bar. Then a tractor comes by, with the idealspeed for hanging on to. I put my stuff away as soon as I can and start chasing him. For 15 minutes I go as fast as I can and I am able to overtake him. When I indicate I want to hang on to his cart, he stops and suggests I put my bike on the cart and indicates I can sit on the adze. After a while we stop for a couple of beers, but we manage to reach Turpan, the second lowest point on earth, 154m below sealevel.

In a bar I run into a Dutch couple, who are on a grouptour following the Silkroute. Later we are joined by 2 older Dutch ladies. They are staying in the hotel at the other side of the street, where I also hope to find a place to stay. Probably much less comfortable, but also against a much lower price

I decide to take it easy in Turpan, (like I did in Urumqi) and just cycle a bit through the city and his surroundings for a couple of days. On the 7th September I plan to visit the famous minaret and mosque, but upon arival I decide I can see it well enough from the outside and cycle on I end up with a Uighur family who invites me for dinner, when I take a picture of their house. When waiting for dinner I work with this happy fellow for an hour. We hang crapes on bamboo sticks to dry. I take some other pictures of the family, which I deliver the same evening. The family is delighted and they offer me a lot of grapes and bread, as they cannot invite me to their evening meal, because they just finished it.

Back to school

2006-09-08T07:45:00.000+02:00

When I enter China I feel a little bit lost. Where should I go, what should I do. When coming from the border, a group of man trying to exchange money surround me. The advantage of a bike is that with a few turns of the pedals you can leave people behind, thus is what I do, although one keeps running behind me. I first search for an ATM, but when I can not find one I go back to one of the money changers. After negotiating for half an hour I get a reasonable conversion rate and enough yuans for a while. I ask the direction for Urumqi, the only city I remember I had "planned" to visit and got on the way. When in the centre og Khorgos I see an ATM and take some extra 2000 Yuan, not sure when I am able to find another one again. After 25km I stop to have dinner and get the best meal on my trip so far and a crash course Chinese, for only 6 Yuan. I now can say hello, thank you, goodbye, yes, bread, eat, drink, good, paprika, tomato and I can count from 1 to 100 in Chinese.

At the moment I want to start looking for a place to stay, a Kazakh trucker pulls up to invite me to come with him to Urumqi. He had seen mee in Zarkhent in Kazakhstan and at the border. I do not mind not cycling the 600 something km to Urumqi and put my bike on the truck and climb in the comfortable cabin. We do not share a language, so it is a quiet ride. The trucker feels very save in his big volvo, overtaking cars when clearly there is not enough time is standard, the oncoming cars just have to slow down. At one stage when he cannot make the turn because the trailer rams into a parked truck, he keeps on banging into the truck till someone wakes up. After some screaming back and forth and continous colliding cars, the other trucker chooses to move his truck.

At three in the morning we arrive in Urumqi. I get the top bunk. This would have been a nice sleeping place were it not that Viktor, the trucker opens the roof window a bit, which makes it rather cold in the truck. All my warm clothes are in my backpack on the trailer and I only am wearing shorts and a t-shirt. In the morning we drive the last few km into the centre, where I thank Viktor and start searching for a place to stay again. On internet I find a cafe, Fubar, run by an Australian and from which they say, they can give advice about accommodation. After a long search through town I finally find the bar. It is still relatively early, but it is open. While drinking a couple of beers I talk to the owner and a German guy. The last one is staying at a cheap place, which he advises me to go to. This time I find my destination quite easily and I finally can have a proper rest.

The next day I meet a local Uighur girl in the Fubar and we decide tohave dinner at a proper Uighur Restaurant, when we are finished it is rather late and she says there are no taxis and buses to her house and that she is scared to walk alone. Always the gentleman I suggest to walk her home or better,why does she not jumpon the back of my bike. When she eventually gets on the back she wants of just after 10 minutes, because she does not feel well. We end up walking for more than an hour and I have to rush bak to the hostel to be in before curfew which is one o'clock. In the hostel I meet Kirsten, a german girl with whom I go to a nearby internet cafe. I have trouble opening hotmail and are not able to update this blog, because the site is blocked. In the evening I go to the movies, Mission Impossibe 3. And even in Chinese it is a pretty bad movie.

On monday I am invited by the Uighur girl, Karima, to be a guest in her class English on the local university. I look really forward to this opportunity to have a look at the Chinese teaching methods. The class starts with the teacher asking a girl to recite a text. She manages to do 3 lines, but then gets stuck, the next person was asked to continue from that point onwards, but does not speak English at all. Volenteers are asked to finish the text. Surprisingly there are none. The assignment is moved to tomorrow and all students are happy with this generous gift of the teacher. Then it is my time. I am invited to tellsomething about my self. So I come to the front of the class onto the podium and tell something about my self for 10 minutes. The remaining time of the 2 hours class I stay on the podium being asked questions from the class and teacher. The first question I got ofcourse is if I am single, second, if I would consider marrying a local girl, third, if I would marry a girl even she had a different religion.
The level of English is so low, many students do not speakEnglish at all, that most questions are asked in Uighur translated into English by the teacher,who also translates my answers back into Uighur or Chinese. Being an English teacher in this class must be very hard. Not ony do the students not speak English, most of them even do not speak Chinese.

All together it was not a bad experience, but I had hoped to so more of teaching, instead of me being the show and tell of the day. In the evening I meet Dave. With his enthousiasm he manages to convince me to go into the Uighur part of town an wander around. I don't regret it. We try to speak Uighur to all people we meet, with the help of Dave's little list of words and in the process find a really nice meat filled bread.

When I leave the next morning I find the wordlist on my bike, thanks Dave!

To the border

2006-09-08T06:39:00.001+02:00

The good cycling feeling returns quickly, although it seems to be going less smooth then it used to be. Probably because the road goes up, while I think it is flat, at least I hope that is the reason. At my first stop, a yurt on the side of the road, I order tea. Next to that I get shashlick and camelmilk. Camelmilk is very sour but when you don't swallow to often it is ok. Outside of Almaty the prices are reasonable, at other places where I do have to pay for my tea they only charge around 25 Tenge. When I ask an old man for directions he invites me into his shop and offers me 500 Tenge. I try to refuse but he is determined and smiles from ear to ear when I accept it. He also shows me a book in which a German guy has written his name in 2000, apparantly he was cycling too. I put my name and address in the book as well and leave in the indicated direction. When the little km signpost on the side of the road indicates 97km I steer my bike in the shoulder and continu until I am out of sight of the road. I do some light repair work on my Guru shirt, the holes keep on falling into it, so I have always something to do.

The next morning I am woken up by cows walking passed me and soon after I am cycling again. After a short while I reach a little village where I can replenish my empty water bottles and get some bread. Afterwards I stop at a little cafe to drink some tea. The cafe is closed, but the owner invites me into het shop to have breakfast. I get 2 sorts of bread, butter, honey, sausage, cheese, cakes, sweets and tea of course. The daughter speaks some English, so I even am able talk a little, what a treat. When I leave I get a get a bottle of pepsi for the road. Cycling goes slow, I feel like stopping all the time and give in to it.

The busstops are nicely ornamented, but in this case only donkeys seem to have an eye for it. The scenery gets more barren. Left and right of the road are small herds of cows and horses accompanied by a cowboy and his dog. Halfway the day I am cycling through a small mountainous section, fortunately I can go through it on the bottom of the hill, so I do not have to climb. When I stop here for dinner I get everything for free again. The cost to me was that I had to drink a mug of horsemilk, which is even worse than camelmilk and smells like horse (manure).

I already saw them alongside the road in Georgia and Azerbaijan, but also here there are tombs of someone who has died on the road. I have not seen any accidents, but by the number of tombs I see there must be quite a few of them.

On August 30 I meet a fellow cyclist. He came from the opposite direction and had already visited China. He was a real diehard one, who cycled everything, not such a baby like me who skips pieces when he can. After a short stop we say goodbye and with increased morale I continu on my route.

Sometimes the horses do not stay on the side of the road but feel like taking part of traffic. The 31st I try to cross the border. Rob the cyclist I met the other day, had warned me it could take a while, it had taken him 10 hours, so I was prepared. For me it was not so bad it only took me 5 hours, it consisted mainly of waiting at the Kazakh side. First for the border control, at one they all went for lunch for an hour and than for a bus who would bring us to the Chinese border. I pleaded I could cycle but was not allowed. Instead I had to make a lot of efforts to carry the bike onto the bus and then get in it my self. In the bus they even asked for money to take me, but I indicated I did not have any money, which was almost true after which I drove for free. The Chinese side was smooth and efficient and I was through in 15 minutes.

Almaty

2006-09-08T05:50:00.000+02:00

After a nights driving the bus arrives in Almaty. I have asked Wilko to arrange an letter of invitation for Russia via internet when I was still stuck in Uzbekistan, so I can pick it up from an internet cafe as soon as I had the time. So I need to find an internet cafe, a bank to get money and the Russian embassy to apply for a visa. I want to get a Russian visa, to be able to travel with 'the Mongols' as they are going via Russia. I am pressed for time, but don't know where I am and I cannot find anybody who is able to explain it to me. Ideally I arrive before 12:00pm at the Russian embassy as that usually is the time embassies close. When I am lucky I might pick the visa up in the afternoon. I find an internet cafe and then it is clear I can relax, the letter of invitation has not come through so I can forget about the visa and travelling with 'the Mongols'.

The new goal is now to find a decent cheap hotel. This is not as easy as it seems in a city you do not speak the language and you do not have a map. I cycle through town all day and find nothing I want stay. I do meet a local who speaks English and we end up in a bar till around three. I decide to sleep in the park. I have to be careful not to be spotted by the police, I've been told it to be illegal. Twice a courting couple stumbles into my hideout and twice I scare the living hell out of them, when I say hello. Not very much rested I restart my search for a place to stay and this time more successful. I find a place which charges 1000 Tenge a night and although this one is full, I meet a Dutch and a Japanese guy with whom I go to another hotel where we share a room for the same price. Before finding a hotel I have applied for a chinese visa, which I can pick up after the weekend.

In the weekend I hang around on terraces together with the Dutch guy, Mart. On Monday morning I get up early and retrieve my passport including visa:-). I wait till ten o'clock when a bookshop opens. I am a bit scared of travelling in China without map, guidebook and any knowledge of the language, so I want to buy a guidebook. Unfortunately neither a guidebook or map of china are for sale in the shop so I leave Almaty without them. The good thing is that I am cycling again.

Stuck between the borders

2006-09-08T04:43:00.000+02:00

On August 21, I wake up with a hangover, the night before with the policeman I drank half a liter vodka, the policeofficer does not look so fit this morning either. This does not prevent him to finally get all the appropriate signatures. Around noon I have a stamp in my passport that says I have to leave the country the same day. An hour later I am in a minivan with 10 others and my bicycle, on my way to the Uzbek Kazakh border. Smoothly my officer directs me past the Uzbek side and then I am on my own again, with my passport, it feels nice to have that back again after 3 days. Now I head for the Kazakh side and what I expected happened, I am not let through, I only had a single entry visa and this is the second time I want to enter. I walk back to the Uzbek side and when I try to explain the situation and ask for a telephone to call the Dutch consul in Tashkent, my passport is taken again. When I was stuck at the police office I had sent text messages to two good friends, Sander and Wilko for the telephone number of the Dutch consul in Uzbekistan. It seemed the consul worked at ABN Amro. At first no one answers, but the second time I get some one from ABN Amro on the phone, who is so kind to put me through to the consul, Hugo Minderhout. Hugo used to work for ABN Amro, but had recently quit. I manage to explain the situation and he is so kind to come from Tashkent so see what he can do for me.

After an hour I am called away from the border to a nearby office, where I meet Hugo and his fixer. I do not know how they arranged it, but I am allowed to come with Hugo in his custody for the time it takes to arrange a new (exit) visa of Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan. The consul lets me stay in his house. In the back of the garden is a huge guesthouse, with indoor swimmingpool, where I have my stay. At night Hugo has an appointment with an English Dutch journalist for which he invites me as well. It turns out a nice evening over a few beers and a good dinner.

The next morning we visit a couple of offices to get the application of my new Uzbek visa going. At first progress is slow, but when Hugo can get hold of the fixer again he manages to set things in motion and late in the evening my passport arrives back at casa Minderhout. While waiting I have been spoiled by the consuls wife, she makes sure I definetly will not lose weight while staying with them. The consul tells me he has received an email from my little brother, that I am probably arrested around Tashkent and if he might be able to help. I do not know how Taco found out, but I am proud on him. During the time I was stuck with the police and waiting for my visa, I got messages from Eleanor, a girl I met on the Mongol Rally, who cheered me up. It feels good to have friends who take care of you or think of you.

On the morning of the 23rd I try to repair the steer of my bike because now I can move the handlebars 10 degrees in both direction without the front wheel changing direction. I consider this as quite awkward and manage to find the origin of the problem and more or less fix it, although still the steering is a bit wobbly. At 9:30 we head for the Kazakh embassy to apply for my Kazakh visa, which I can pick up at five the same day. In the mean time I relax in the consuls garden, swim a little in his outdoor swimmingpool and of course eat all the delicious things Alla, Hugo's wife offers me.

At five I pick up my passport again and Hugo brings me to the border where I this time have no problem of going through. At the other side I find a bus who is willing to take me and my bike to Almaty, where I might be able to reembark on the Mongol rally.

Finally arrested

2006-08-27T16:20:00.000+02:00

We drive the whole day only interrupted for stops for food, water, petrol or a change of driver or a combination of them. At 3:30 we reach kungrad and it is decided we are going to spend the rest of the night here. Most sleep in the car, Drew and I sleep outside on my tarp and mats. Although not for too long I sleep quite well. The cars have had a beating by the rough road and we find a place to have the cars, especially the sj, repaired. In the meantime everybody has a shower and some time to relax in the sun. Halfway the afternoon we get back on the road again. Just after midnight of the 16th we have a short stop to drink some tea. I am congratiolated with my 33rd birthday by all the people who were not asleep and we buy some waffles as birthday cake. After that we get going until Buchara, which we reach around 12:00. Miraculously we bump into the Americans, who had spent the night a few hundred meters before our stop. This is already the second time we see them after our separation. Samarkand is not to far a way anymore and after a few hours we check into a proper hostel, with beds, hot water and nice food. Everybody is dead tired and all except me go to sleep. I have a quick visit of the famous town on the silk route. I am disappointed. Although there are beautiful buildings, they all are quite detached from the rest of the city. On my way back to the hostel I see a shoe repairman and ask him if he can mend my shoes. There is a hole in my left shoe and both shoes are slanted at the heels. He indicates me it is not a problem. As soon as I hand over my left shoe he takes his knife and starts cutting of the whole rubber sole. Now there is no way back and I let him have his go at my once great boots. It all takes more time than I expected and I make clear I will be back later and barefooted I return to the hostel to have a shower. When I return my shoes are ready, but they look monstrous. They used to be a size 43 but now soles of size 45 are fitted underneath. They do not walk great either.

All gather in the courtyard at eight to have a toast on my birthday and I have brought some proper cake to celebrate. We start with chacha and I get a glass full, while the others only a bottom, the foundation of my drunkenness. After another one and 2 vodkas we head for a restaurant. I am not sure all what happened there. Fact is that the next day I could not remember we had been served food and my shirt was wet. Although the plan was to get going again at a decent time we only leave around 18:30. At some point we get lost a bit (I was navigating) and I ask for directions. Because of the language barrier it takes a while before I get the message across and what the directions are. In the end they suggest we follow a car who will lead us to the proper road. We end up driving behind him for a quarter of an hour and when we stop he is happy he could have helped us. We feel like superstars also because everywhere we stop dozens of people surround the cars and motorbike. In Tashkent we get lost again and this time a taxi driver leads us the way out of the city. He drives in the middle of the road with emergency lights on as if we are a special convoy.

Then at 8:00 we get a serious roadblock. We already had several of them before, but most of the time we just kept driving even if they signaled us to stop. Only once our passports were checked. Although the policeman thought it strange I had no visa and he had to check with someone on the phone he told us to carry on. This time it is different though.

Several superiors are called to the case and I plea my case for more than an hour to them, the time comes to say goodbye to my fellow travellers. I try to put up a brave and happy face, but I feel sad to let them go. My bike and bag is taken off the SJ and all my other stuff is gathered as well. There is time to get everybody's email and to take a picture and a quick goodbye, but then I am loaded in to the back of a flatback army truck. Slowly my friends get smaller in the distance.

After a mad drive, the driver obviously does not mind the huge bumps and holes in the road, I arrive in Angern. I am interrogated for a while, with the help of an interpreter. They cannot believe i got in the country without a visa, without bribing anybody. they talk about deporting me to Holland, to which I protest vehemently, by telling them it was their fault they let me in and that I do not want to carry the consequences. They leave me, in the room for a couple of hours and admit later pn they had forgotten about me. I guess they do not know what to do with me. They put me in the truck again and drive me to Akhangaran. The truck breaks down halfway,which does not surprise me, considering his driving. Eventually in Akhangaran I wait in the courtyard of an unfinished building for a couple of hours. Propably I was waiting to be officialy carried over from the army to the police, because after I am taken by police officers to a police station. No one in the station speaks any English, it is already dark when a local English teacher is introduced to help to interpret. For the so four or fifth time I explain what happened. The situation will not be sorted out to night, so two officers take me out to a restaurant for dinner. For the night I have to sleep on a small bench and I share the roomwith an old smelly dog, but I do not smell to great either. The next day I am taken to an other office to get some signatures. When back at the police station I am asked to take the phone to talk to a woman who speaks English. She tells me I will be brought to Kazakhstan later that day. The day goes by but nothing happens. In the evening I am going out for dinner again, this time with the officer who is responsible for my case and his wife or mistress. When at the restaurant I am given the phone again to talk to the English speaking lady again. She tells me that I will be brought to Kazakhstan the next day.

Mongol rally

2006-08-26T11:13:00.000+02:00

On August 11 I went to the Iranian embassy in Baku only to find out that they lost my application. Ten days waiting for nothing. They offered me a new form to apply again, only had to pay 65$ and wait an other 10 days and then they might let me into Iran. I decided to make a dash for the Kazakh embassy and apply for a Kazakh visa, which I knew I could get the same day. I filled in the form, handed over the 40$ and my passport and was told to pick up my passport at 5. In the meantime I could visit the harbor to find out when the next ferry to Aktau, Kazakhstan would leave. The departure times of the ferry are some what of a secret and are only disclosed a few hours before departure. I was told to return at four and then they might tell if it would depart the same day. When I returned to the harbor at 4 I met some people of the Mongol rally, I had seen before a week before at the velotrek hotel. They had been waiting more than a week for the ferry to depart. They were able to tell me the ferry most likely was setting sail to Aktau the same night. Now I had to hurry to the embassy to fetch my passport, then to the hotel to get my bag and then down to the harbor again. I had a football match scheduled with some Afghans at seven, which I was invited for by Mozes. I had met him on the department of foreign affairs of Azerbaijan when I got my Azerbaijan visa extended. Unfortunately I had to call this off, although I had been looking really forward to my first match in months.

In the harbor it was not straight forward to get a ticket. The boat had not sailed for quite some time so many people wanted to be on it and space was limited. After waiting a couple of hours I got my ticket for me and my bike, for which they charged me a ridiculously high amount. In the harbor I was welcomed by the guys and girl participating on the Mongol rally. They had been sleeping there for the last week. After a while a man came by to tell me I had to pay an extra amount of money for my bike. No one was really able to explain me where the money was for, but they advised me to pay it anyway as I would not want to risk my boarding. With huge regret I coughed up the few extra dollars. We boarded at around one in the morning but only left around seven. Originally I shared a cabin, with Tommie, one of the 'Mongols', but we were evicted for a family. I ended up in a cabin with 3 Kazakhs. The next day at 04:00 we arrived in Aktau, after a lot of waiting and inefficient operations we were able to leave the ship at 11:00. Then we had to go through customs and past border control, which took another few hours. The 11 'Mongols' were going to put 2 cars on a truck to go through the desert. They feared the 2cv, rover metro and the motor cycle would not survive the trip. I was invited to put my bike in the truck as well and I gladly joined. With me joining it was a little bit more crowded than expected, but with four in the lada and sj, two in the 2cv and three in the back of the cabin of the truck it worked out quite well.

In the first night the sj broke part of the rear suspension, but the guys managed to repair it on the spot. The next day we reached the Uzbek border. An exiting moment for me, as I had no visa for Uzbekistan. I tried to find out from the border officers if I would be able to get an Uzbek visa at the border. They said it never had been done and they told me I could not pass. I decided to go to the office responsible for the crossings and gave them my passport. Without looking for visa they stamped for my exit and I was free to cycle out of Kazakhstan. The next hurdle probably would be more difficult, but there was no way back now. I went to the Uzbek custom office, filled out two forms and was put through to the office of the border control. Slightly nervous I entered the office, I was certain I would have serious problems; also these officers did not even for a second search for a visa, but searched for an empty page in my passport and stamped it. I now was officially admitted to Uzbekistan. I could not believe my luck. I did not want to draw any attention to me by hanging around the border waiting for the others to pass the border so I went to a small cabin at the other side of the road to drink some tea. The local people were not accustomed to cyclist so they invited me for soup, bread and the inevitable vodka. After a while Cyrus came in to tell me I better got going as the cars were about to go through and that they would pick me up just out of sight of the border, to avoid extra attention of the police. After buying a bottle of water I started cycling through the Uzbek desert. I expected the 'Mongols' to catch up with me any minute, but whoever came, no 'Mongols'. I cycled until the sun went down and then decided to stop for the night. I have no light on my bike. Fortunately I had asked for bread at a restaurant I had passed earlier. For water I just stopped every car that passed me and they all gave a bottle. To be sure the 'Mongols' would not pass me undetected I slept close to the road and I lit a candle. At 12 o'clock the truck in which the cars had been, passed me. The truckers indicated the 'Mongols' were still to come. I assumed one of the cars had a break down and the truckers had not wanted to wait. When I woke at seven in the morning, the candle was out and I was unsure if they already had passed me. I had a quick breakfast and got cycling again. The wind was against me, the road was full of wholes and unsurfaced, it was very hot and I was totally out of energy. I found a little deserted cabin and decided to stay there for a couple of hours. Inside it seemed inhabited, but at the moment no one was there. I found a cup with lumps of sugar and took a few, to replenish my energy. I put some Tenges next to it to compensate the owner of the hut. After an hour Tommie on his motorcycle came blazing by. I was surprised that he did not stop, but when passing me he yelled:'Can't stop. My clutch is stuck. The others are coming'. This was good news. After half an hour the lada pulled up. In the front seat was a police officer. The lada apparently did not have the proper license plates and now they would have to be escorted by the police the whole route through Uzbekistan.
The Americans were not able to stop for long, the officer already was annoyed. After a long time finally the brits came by. As of a matter of factly they invited me to join them, although the cars already were heavy loaded. I was happy to embark on the rally again.

Waiting for the visa

2006-08-10T08:51:00.010+02:00

On the first of August I applied for an Iranian visa. I have to wait 10 days until I get the answer. I hope they allow me, although I have met quite a few people who were denied. If they deny me I will try to get into Kazakhstan

Baku has a very western center, this is a view on the old part.

On the way to Lahic we stopped for water. The local restaurant held this bear in a cage to attract customers. Not only was he in a small cage he was chained as well. Animal rights are not a big thing in Azerbaijan.

I visited Lahic for a few days to do nothing in the mountains instead of the city.

I climbed a hill near Lahic and saw this gigantic bird of prey with a wing span between 1.5 to 2m (not clear on the picture unfortunately) circling up on the hot air. It passed me on about 10 meters. Down in the valley a ridge the Russians long ago started to build.

One of the advantages by not cycling is that you can have nice breakdowns. The old bus out of the mountains broke down twice, but with the help of the passengers and bystanders it was revived twice.

I am staying in the Velotrek hotel. This is the view I've got from my window.

To Baku

2006-08-10T08:29:00.005+02:00

You can find the strangest things sold next to the road. This obviously is still in Georgia, as Azerbaijan is predominantly Muslim and not to keen on pork.

In this beautiful kervanseray in Seki, I had the luck to be able to spend a night. I had been told you always had to make a reservation, but I managed to get the last available room without, just before a Swedish guy, just coming in after me.

I left Seki late in the morning, waiting for the rain to stop. Eventually I got on the way in the pouring rain. At times I was cycling down in 10cm deep water. In this picture the road has partly been destroyed. The Niva waiting almost was washed away crossing.

On the road to Qabala a man preparing dinner, sheep.

These guys took me into the mountains in their lada. The lada's seem to be capable of more than I expected. The road was often non existent, but still we managed to get through without having to push. They also helped me finding a hotel.

To get in Samaxi I had to climb a gruesome hill. It was not only that it was steep, also that it had rained and the mud was 5cm deep. I could only get up in my lightest gear, but still I got out of breath.

From Samaxi to Baku, had some empty, barren stretches and finally the sun came through, in spades.

Tbilisi

2006-08-02T19:18:00.001+02:00

A wedding of four couples in the big church in the centre of Tbilisi

A view on the river with church

Levan came to pick me up, but at first did not manage to restart the car. We thought we were out of petrol. Some of Levans old friends were so kind to fetch some. It turned out this did not help either. After a while Levan found out that apart from sticking the key in the ignition you first have to use another key to unlock the starting mechanism. With this knowledge put to practice we had no problems starting.

Georgia

2006-08-02T19:15:00.000+02:00

July 17 had a beautiful bright morning, which made me reconsider my decision to abort the hiking trip. I did not feel like doing the same path again for two days and packed my bike and embarked. By going down I realized how steep the climb up had been, I had to almost brake to the maximum to not accelerate. In the shady parts it was still chilly, so I was glad I had put my jacket on to stop the wind when I was going faster. After Camlihesim the road is less steep, still I make it to the coast in record breaking time. In the last town before the border, Hopa, I relaxed and updated my journal. On the terrace it strikes me that there are more girls than usual and that they are wearing more western style clothes i.e. revealing more of themselves. I like it. Passing the border is easy, no money needs to be paid, Europeans do not need a visa to enter Georgia and I only have to show my passport to half a dozen people. Right after the border I am welcomed by a guy selling a local type of bread filled with cheese, Katchapouri. He wants to give me a plastic bag full, but I convince him two are enough. They taste great and are not the last ones I eat in Georgia. When I tell them I am Dutch, he and his friends repeat with “Sandra good”, referring to the Dutch first lady. I also learn my 3 essential Georgian words. I try to learn them for every language of a country when I enter: “hello”; “goodbye” and “thank you”. I might not be able to talk to them, I at least can be a little polite to them in their language. The Georgian equivalents are respectively (written as I pronounce it): “camardjoba”, “nachvamdis” and “madloba”. I spent the night on the beach south of Batumi in my tent, which I get in a configuration I like and will be using from now on. My bicycle turned up side down, acting as main tent pole. From there the tent moves down ending in 2 low points about 30 cm above the ground attached with little ropes to stones or sticks in the ground. The sides of the tent I secure with stones. So the front is a triangle and the rear is a delta. The tent tarp is above aswell as under me so I have no problems with wet grounds (in theory).

The next morning I take a dive in the sea instead of a shower. I badly need it, even I think that I smell badly, which is not so strange when not showering for a week. The water is wonderfull, not cold at all, only beaches at the black sea tend to be of stones instead of sand, so going in and out is sometimes tricky. After I have packed everything it starts to rain again. Soaking wet I take refuge in a church in Batumi. Apparently my shorts are to short to official church regulations and I am sent back to the rain. I put my shorts down till they are over my knees but this gesture is not appreciated.

On advice of my French cycling examples, in the evening I set up camp behind a petrol station. When the owner finds out, he invites me to set up camp in his garden. Later on he offers me to sleep in a sort of arbor and he also offers an old mattress which I gladly accept, so I do not have to set up my tent at all. They also let me have a hot shower and feed me a hot meal. At first I was a bit scared with them as 2 huge security guys with big shotguns were walking around, but they also were very nice. The cook wants to ride my bike for a while and is gone for half an hour and is happy as a child when he returns.

The next night I stay on a little field near Zestaponi surrounded with blackberries. To come there at first I try to climb up at a steep part, pushing my bike. Almost up I slip on the wet ground and I fall with bike and all right through the blackberry bushes. Not much harm done only scratches on arms and legs, the bike is still in one piece. 200m further down the road I find a decent path leading to the field, I even could cycle it. After setting up the tent I eat all the berries I can. At first I have to share the field with a(nother) pig, but he maybe can not bear my smell and leaves. At night I am woken up by the rain that is raining in. I had not positioned my tent correctly and the wind came in through the front. I take out my rain poncho and hang it in the entrance, which solves the problem. Unfortunately my sleeping bag, I had been using as pillow was now a bit wet. I decide to lie underneath it to warm me and hopefully dry it in the process.

The next day the plan is to sleep near to Gori, so I can reach Tbilisi the next day, but cycling is hard. Every time the road goes up I have to shift back to a very light gear, I seem to have no power what so ever. When I am sitting by the road eating my brunch I notice that quite a few trucks are going up and down very slow. This makes me realize that the gradient might be higher than I thought.

no hiking

2006-07-26T17:48:00.001+02:00

On the 9th of July Taco brings me to the Köln-Bonn Airport for my flight to Antalya. I arrive at 2:15 local time. Although loads of transfers are present to take all the tourists to their resorts none is willing to take me. I decide to walk. I had forgotten to take socks with me (I have no clue how that could happen) and I get blisters on my heels. So I am glad when a truck driver who just finished repairing his truck wants to bring me to the city center at 4:00. I am a little worried when he is not following the sign “sehir merkezi”, city center, but after a while I see a new one and that turn he is taking. When I get out I am still in the outskirts and a guy with a really old car stops to give me a lift. At first the car even does not start, but after a while we get going. Soon he is offering me porn books. I tell him I am not interested, he really urges me to read them but I decline the generous offer. Then apparently we have reached the final destination because I have to go out, I do not mind. After a little walking I reach a park at the coast in the center and decide to wait there until the sun comes up.

My bus back to Ordu leaves at 14:30 and arrives the following day at 9:00. I manage to do some sleeping but my length still prevents me from lying comfortable. I decided to take of my walking boots, so I have more foot space. The busboy tells me to put them back on and this time my feet do not even smell. I put my feet out of his sight behind a bag and leave my boots of. In Ordu I buy socks and put them on, this helps my aching heels. My bike and bag I find where I left them. Unfortunately it had rained in my absence and apparently rain had entered my bag. The damage was not bad, although one sweater had something growing out of it and the touristy book of Holland I got from Daan and Marieke was soaking wet. I decided to throw it away and to remove the fungus from my clothes.

The next day I went on my way to Trabzon. Rain is apparently not rare in this region, as I started the day with a light rain. I had wind in the back though, so I was making good progress. When I was sitting at a bus stop sheltering for the rain I was having my lunch when two old women came by. At first I thought they were inviting me to come with them to eat at their place. So I started packing. Then I realized that was not what they wanted. They wanted a piece of my cheese. Glad to give something to the people instead of receiving I gave them the larger part of my cheese. I had to finish my lunch in the outside though. In Trabzon I did not do much I even skipped visiting the famous monastery (shame on me).
To Rize the weather was better, no rain, no sun, no wind, excellent cycling circumstances. Sometimes you hear of people who take a lot of pens with them on their holiday to give to the kids they meet. I was given one when stopping for tea, by one of the guys also paying for the tea. He bought it from a lady selling it at the tables. I must admit it writes great. In Rize I found at the tourist information two maps with tracks to hike in the region. I had read in a book there was supposed to be a great hiking trail close to Rize and found some of the trail on the maps.
The next day I had to decide if I wanted to hike for a while or not. When I came across a shop who sold plastic sails for trucks I decided to buy some to create a tent from. The consequence was that now I had to hike as well (in my logic). So at Ardesen I turned away from the coast to Ayder. As soon as I went in to the mountains it started to rain again. Near Ayder I was invited to warm my self at a camp fire while drinking some tea. I could have stayed for dinner, but during my short stay family arrived and I felt I was invading their privacy to much. In the evening I had my first meaningful conversation with a Turkish women/girl. She was joining with the family of her boss on a short holiday. Unfortunately she had to go to bed when her boss went to bed.

The 15th I started my hiking by climbing the hill above Ayder. Soon I lost the track and went on without it. I even went climbing up through a little stream. Because visibility dropped to below 25m and it started raining, I decided to set up camp. I found a big boulder which I could use as tent pole. Smaller stones to secure the tent were harder to find but after some searching I managed to find them. For the rest of the day I lay in my liar. It was not very comfortable, the ground was tilted so I constantly was sliding down. The roof was a bit to short so I had to be careful no rain was coming in. My main concern was though that I might not have enough food if I was going so slow. They had told me I could not get bread on many places and I did not bring too many. I did bring a lot of cheese, sausage and chokocreme, so every piece of bread had a huge topping. At five the air cleared and I finally had a great view.

It was misty, although here the view was not at its worst.
The next morning weather was ok so I headed for Avuser, which I managed to reach rather simple, although I needed the help of a cow herder to find my initial direction. In Avuser I had some tea and was even to speak English with a kid from Istanbul visiting his family, I also bought some bread so I was starting to feel comfortable with the whole operation again. It was not long after I left the little village that my map lead me in the wrong direction, fortunately I was corrected by some locals. About an hour later I was at the place they had described to me and I even could find back on my map. It was a tiny lake surrounded by steep mountains. My map indicated there should be a path somewhere, but I could not find anything closely resembling one. I searched for half an hour and then just climbed up on hand and feet in the direction my map and compass directed me. Without too much problems I reached some kind of saddle, but by this time the clouds had came again and my hope to be able to see a landmark to orient on had vanished. I waited for one and a half hour, meanwhile putting on trousers and a coat, for the clouds to evaporate. It did not happen and I gambled that going down on the other side would bring me forward. When I with a lot of slip and sliding I descended the steep rocks I found I basically had returned to the valley of Avuser again. Since I did not know how to proceed I returned to Avuser, where I found a truck who took me back to Ayder. Disillusioned I went back to the place I had my stay a day earlier.

back home

2006-07-17T15:45:00.000+02:00

June 26th I cycle to Ordu along the coast. Halfway I take a refreshing dive in the water. When I try to dry in the sun I get an allergic reaction of my white skin to the sun so I quickly move to the shade. In Ordu I find a hotel that is willing (and understands) to store my bike and backpack on the balcony until I return from Holland in the evening I search the internet to find cheap flights back to Holland to bring a surprise visit to the wedding of Sandra and Marco and visit friends and family along the way. I find a flight from Istanbul to Eindhoven on the day of the wedding and decide to book this one. Cheap flights back are harder to find and I decide to worry about that when I am in Holland. The next day I stuff all the things I want to take with me in a linen sack and the rest I place on the balcony of the hotel. The overnight bus leaves only 18:00 so I kill time by walking around and sitting at the shore. I still have cheese to put on bread but have left my knife at the hotel. I find out that cutting cheese and sausage with your bankcard is almost as easy. Unfortunately I was rather clumsy and drop the bankcard between the big boulders at the see while cutting. After half an hour trying to fetch it with a little twig I finally have my card back. The bus ride goes rather smooth, but relative long body is not easy to put in a comfortable sleeping position in the bus so rather tired I arrive the next morning in an outskirt of Istanbul. The chauffeur of my transfer to the centre manages to get into a fight on the short route. The first time he tries to pull another chauffeur out of his car and the second time another angry road user steps in our mini bus to molest our driver. All ends well, but it certainly keeps you awake.
I decide to walk to the hostel I slept in before and this time I am granted a bed right a way. I take a warm shower and have to dry my self with one of my dirty shirts because I did not bring a towel. I walk into town to find presents, but of course I do not find anything. I figure they just have to be happy with me bringing them a visit. Afterwards I sit on the roof terrace and drink beer with Chrissie (Australian) and Gilles (French) with whom I also go to have dinner. At one o’clock the long day ends. Together with Chrissie, Gilles, Damien (Australian) and a Singapore girl of which I did not get the name we go to the Asian side where my airport is as well. After 2 hours we get bored with that side and take a ferry back to the European side. We spend some time in Taksim drinking beer and eating after which I take the ferry again to Asia. I walk to the train station and catch a tram to Pendik. According to a description in a travel guide I should only have to walk 4 km to the Sabiha Gokcen Airport. I ask for directions and they put me on a minibus who is supposed to pass the airport real close. When I am told to get off the bus I cannot see the airport anywhere. After walking 15 minutes in exactly the wrong direction I find some one who accompanies me so far I can no longer go wrong. Now I have to wait eight hours until departure at 4:45. Sleeping opportunities were not great but manage to sleep a few separate quarters of hours.

I have got 3 places for my self and manage to sleep almost the whole flight. I guess that is no excessive luxury as it might get late this night. I try to hitch hike to either Utrecht or Rotterdam. Although 5 people stop they all go in the wrong direction. Finally a German guy stops and takes me with him in his big Mercedes. Soon it becomes clear he is interested in more than I want him to offer. He finds me very attractive and would not mind to have sex with me. I thank him for the interest, but tell him I belong to another camp. He drops me off at the station of Den Bosch and I decide to proceed with the rest of trip via rail. I do not want to miss the wedding. I first go to Taco to have a shower or else people might not be happy to see me after all. Sander the only other person next to Taco who knows I am in Holland calls me to tell me his new girl friend, Sandra (not the one who marries on this day:-), is willing to pick me up from The Hague Central Station. We agree that we will meet at 3 o’clock. At the latest moment Sandra becomes aware that the wedding is a half an hour earlier than we thought, so we have to meet half an hour earlier as well. It would have been ironic if I had missed it just by half an hour, but now we make it in time.

A familyphoto, so you can see from what kind of nest I come from.

To the coast

2006-07-17T15:44:00.000+02:00

Leaving Goreme the (tourist) centre of Cappadocia was no picnic. I had to climb a short very steep road paved with large irregular stones. But with my gear in the lightest position and bending over my steer as much as possible to not fall backward it went in retrospect quite smoothly. Although my bike had behaved properly since my last operation of tightening the “pedal axle” it started to get loose again and now even my spoon did not offer a proper and tight solution. I tried in Ugrup at a bicycle shop, but they did not have the proper tools to solve it. I had a go at the bolt anyway with an adjustable wrench, but just outside the city I had to work on it again. Now every 10 minutes I had to stop, tighten it and cycle again. In Avanos I finally found a proper bicycle repairman and he solved the problem (it now is 25 of July and still no problems). Now my bicycle was behaving it self again after being set straight by a professional I could cycle to Kayseri. In here I got the idea to just have quick flight back to Holland to make a surprise visit at the wedding of good friends.
In Gemerek they did not have a proper hotel but had some accommodation above the local bank I could sleep. In this town obviously they were not accustomed to tourists, as I was treated as a celebrity. Everybody wanted to shake my hand or say hello to me. One moment I was given a telephone to talk to someone, I had no clue who or what they wanted so I just babbled for a while before returning it. The next day I had a food problem again. I had expected to be able to buy bread in a little village that showed on my map. Upon arrival it became clear there was no shop. Fortunately by now I knew the word for bread, “ekmek”, so when I repeatedly said the word to a local guy indicating that I wanted to buy it he ran to his house and gave me two unyeasted breads (like huge folded pancakes but then very thin). A bit more comfortable I cycled on, with the plan to cycle to the next village, Direkli, 25km further down the road to try another time to get bread and than try to find a suitable sleeping place. When cycling into the village I passed 3 locals, greeting them they responded in Dutch are you from Holland? Quickly I turned and I was claimed by the three. They claimed they had been responsible for laying all cables underground in Amsterdam. Now they had returned to the homeland because they had worked illegally. They invited me to drink tea and when I indicated I was still searching for bread, they made sure the only shop was opened. No bread was available so a little kid was sent in to the village to find one for me. Next to the bread I also got two fantas and cookies. I already got the impression they would not allow me to pay so I was careful I did not want too many goods. My suspicion came out and with my gifts I cycled a few km to set up camp near a stream. This time only a few magpies were present, so no fear of a new covering of my sleeping bag.

On my way to Tokat I had to go over a pass, which went rather smooth, the way down was great. On the wide flat road I could increase my personal speed record. Unfortunately I do not have a speedometer. In the shade of a tree I had lunch and made some repairs on my shirt with one of the few last remains of my old underpants. I also adjusted the position and angle of the switches of my gears, so I could lay my hands in the middle of the handlebars.

The road to Akkus proved heavier than expected. A lot going down, but also a lot up as well. After Niksar I twice hang on to slow truck passing me going up. You get tired of hanging on to a truck as well only not in your legs but your arm and hand. When I let go I thought I nearly was at the top but still the road went up for a longtime afterwards. I had dinner in a restaurant just after the top thinking I was done with climbing for the day. Unfortunately to get to Akkus I had to pass a pass. Without any energy I battled against the mountain. The good thing of cycling is that if you work long enough you eventually make it. At the top, in the clouds I was invited for some tea what I gladly accepted. My sweaty shirt and the cold clouds cooled me down fast so I had to put on a coat to not start shivering. Akkus was only 3km down and the only hotel had a blistering hot shower which I used until my whole room was filled with steam.

Only 55km downhill cycling separated me from the coast. The new cycle day should be an easy one. It was apart from the fact that in my enthusiasm in going down fast I missed a corner and after creating a long skid mark in the gravel next to the road, I fell from my bike. Fortunately nothing was broken, nor on me nor on the bike. I only had some scratches on arms legs and hips and sore fingers. A bit more careful and much slower I carried on with the way down to Unye, a small city at the black Sea.

The road to Cappadocia

2006-06-27T11:57:00.001+02:00

The first day of cycling after the short break in Istanbul was to Iznik. During this day I had to do some repair works on my bike for the first time. The axle connecting my two pedals (I do not know the proper English) was getting loose, and made the pedals move sideways. At first I could tighten the “bolt” manually, but soon the intervals to redo the job got smaller. In Iznik I was able to find a guy, who tightened it properly, I thought. Free of charge although he could keep the standard I asked him to remove from the bike as well. Now my bike was stripped of all excessive weights.
The next day to Sogut I cycled through the cherry orchards. Many farmers were willing to indulge me with a sack of cherries. At the end of the day I had to refuse taking them because I already had eaten so many and still had a kg strapped to my bike. Out of courtesy I always ate a few. Apart for eating cherries many times I was called to the side of the road to drink some tea. I hardly missed any invitation. The invitations to eating cherries ended when I left the region, invitations to drink tea I got everywhere along the route in Turkey. Halfway during the day I took a live of a cat by riding over it, fortunately they seem to have nine and with its left over lives he managed to run away unharmed. The next morning, when I left my hotel I was invited to have breakfast at the opposite restaurant. When I was about to leave, because I was totally filled up, the people indicated I had to stay for a little longer as they had ordered a coffee for me at a shop nearby. The first part of the day was very nice over rolling hills and alongside a little river. I even saw a fox running in the distance. At my destination I managed to find an affordable hotel, but this one did not have, like the previous, any showers.I got my first flat tire just outside of Kirka. With my spoon and the file on my leatherman I managed to get the tire of the front wheel. A burst at the base of the valve appeared to be the reason. It seemed not possible to repair, so I put on the tube I got from Sylvain. For this I had to take the wheel of the bike, but for a change I came prepared, I had bought a wrench to help me with it. Although it rained during the day it was nice cycling. Only when I had to cycle back for a couple of km to retrieve my forgotten road map at a lokanta, I had a little bit less fun in it. At my destination Afyon it really started raining and it was when I took cover in a little shop that sold only one kind of sandwich, that I finally met a Turk who spoke English very well. We decided that we would drink a few beers after he had finished working at the shop and his colleagues would join as well. The boss of the joint preferred to drink outside, so we (they did not allow me to pay for anything so it is actually they) bought a couple of cans of Efes and drove with the turkfiat to the station a favorite hangout of the boss. Unfortunately it was still raining, so we ended up with the five of us drinking in the small, soon foggy car. The beer tasted good though and the company was nice.

From Afyon I cycled to Aksehir. It was not my intention to cycle that many km, but I did not see a suitable place to stay and I had the wind in the back. In the morning I had feared my cycling would be over for a while because a repairman had taken off the steering from my frame and in the process broken some parts. I just had wanted him to tighten a bolt on my steering, which actually did not properly fit. It was slightly to big, I had solved it by putting toilet paper in between the bolt and the steering bar and then had tightened it, but this was no sustainable solution, hence my visit to this guy. Fortunately my man was not put off by this small setback and sent some one to the market to fetch some parts. Although they did not part, he managed to grind them in such a way that they did. The end result was that the new bolt sat tight as a house. I paid him with a flacon of soap, I just got before from a traveling salesman who had stopped me on the highway to talk to me. The road to Kadinhani was tough as I had wind head on.Every excuse to stop I took. First the invitation to join breakfast (it was quite well assorted: tea; bread; two sorts of cheese; melon; tomatoes; cucumber and olives) with four truckers at the road side and many tea breaks. After midday the wind could change every five minutes. One moment I was cruising nicely with wind in the back and the other moment I had to work hard because it came straight at me, without me changing directions.

In Konya the first three people I spoke with answered me in Dutch. The first was a café owner I drank tea with. The second was working in a bicycle shop and the third I happen to sit opposite to in a Kebab joint. All three had worked in Holland for a couple of years but were made to leave. The next morning when I wanted to leave I could not find my bike any more. I feared it was stolen, but after inquiring with the hotel manager I learned that they had put it in a cupboard in the hotel to keep it safe. In Konya I made the mistake not to buy bread. Although I had many opportunities I delayed my purchase all the time until it was too late. Eventually I had to cycle 70 km before I finally could buy my lunch. I enjoyed my just purchased bread on a picnic place which I shared with to men who were shaving each others head with a blunt razor. They looked quite fierce afterwards with their bloody heads. They were very friendly though they came to offer me a couple of glasses of soda. I could not find a proper place to stay the night, so I ended up at Aksaray. Underway I had seen many little marmots running away from the road when I passed them. Unfortunately they always were to quick for me to take a picture of them.

An idyllic spot I had lunch. Some annoying kids disturbed the idyll and got me on my bike again. During this days' trip to Derinkuyu I got problems with the axel connecting my pedals again. I managed to tighten the bolt with the help of my spoon quite well and after that it did not bother me again that day and the next. As a sleeping place I chose a place in a row of trees. In the evening I had trouble falling a sleep because of the hundreds of starlings in them. What could be expected, but I did not think of beforehand, happened. The next morning when I woke up my sleeping bag was covered with bird shit. Except for the unwelcome bird gifts Cappadocia was a wonderful experience.Beautifully shaped rocks, made inhabitable by early Christians, rough gorges and nice off road paths to see it all. In one of the gorges 3 churches were created in the eroded rocks!

I was cycling through a gorge (?) and had been told by a guide that I could exit it at the end. Probably I took a wrong turn again somewhere because I ended up on a hiking trail. Had to push my bike regularly as the inclination was round 50%. Even without bike it would have been difficult to go up. But I made it, although this opening was hardly wide enough for my handle bars to go through.

Istanbul

2006-06-27T11:25:00.000+02:00

From the map I had seen of Istanbul I had the impression I had to go to the Asian side of Istanbul to go to my hostel. Fortunately I took some wrong turns which saved me from cycling about 20 km for nothing. Most hostels are close to the Sultan Ahmet mosque, also known as the blue mosque, which is stil on the European side. In the small streets behind the mosqueI ran into two fellow cyclists with many more kilomters under their belts. They had been cycling for morte than two years and now were on their way home, France. This home trip would still take them another five months on the road. I decided to take the same hostel as they would take, but as theirs was full, I ended up in my origanally intended hostel, 20 meters down the road. Istanbul and his hostels was a renewed reconnaissance with fellow travelers and tourists after a while of relatively loneliness. So many people to talk to and really able to properly communicate and share thoughts and stories with. Very often big cities are to big for me and I want to leave them, but altough Istanbul possibly is the biggest city I have been, I never felt bored. There always seemed something to do or to see and when I did not want to do that I could hang out with one of the many fellow travelers in the (neıghbouring) hostel.
The next morning after breakfast (included in the price), where I really stuffed my self with getting many orders of bread and scavaging untouched parts of others breakfast I moved to the hostel of Sylvain and Fabrice, the two French cyclists as my hostel was full for the rest of the week. I had failed to book more than one night in my urge to always keep my options open. Their hostel was full as well, but the owner allowed us to sleep in the bar for reduced price. Which was actually a nicer place than dormitory, the only down side was that we could only go to sleep when all people were gone (normally early as all people preferred to sit outside) and had to get up before breakfast was served. The French intoxicated me with their cycling stories and made me more determined to go cycling for a longer stretch. So I doubled the value of my bike by buying two new tyres. They had much less drag and were better protected against punctures.
On Thursday June-8, I was pleasantly surprised by the arrival of Jake, the beginning writer I met in Tunis. He made a stopover in Istanbul on his way from India to Germany. We did some sight seeing and had dinner together with the French and two of Fabrices friends. The next day some more wandering through the city and I searched for some tools to be able to do some maintenance on my bike. At night Fabrice and I had diner, Jake did not feel like eating and Sylvain had left to France for an appearance on a surprise party for his father. Following that we watched a worlcup football match in a locals bar. Because the wheather was bad the hostels’ bar was quite full and we could not go to bed. The owner, a very friendly guy, allowed us to sleep on a dorm, after allowing Fabrice, Sylvain and me to sleep in a vacant room (for two, I slept great on a pile of blankets on the floor) the the previous night.
Saturday morning I left before seven to get the ferry to Yalova of 7:30. Unfortunately I had not said goodbyes to Fabrice and Jake. Fabrice half woke up when I packed my bag, so I could thank him for the map and all the advice he gave me. Jakes hostel was nearby and he woke up when I called his name (surprise;-) in the dorm and we were able to wish each other pleasant journeys again. After that I had just enough time to catch the ferry out of Istanbul. By taking the ferry I did not have to cycle over the highway at all as I had done on the way into Istanbul.

Via email I found out good friends had gotten a daughter. Her name is Tara.

Cycling!

2006-06-14T17:58:00.000+02:00

I arrived at Çanakkale late in the evening and took the first hotel I could fınd and afford. This turned out to be an old, dirty, smelly and noisy place, but it had a bed and that for me is the most important feature of a hotel. The same night I already found a much nicer place on internet, but I could not change anymore, I had already paid. The next morning I switched to the other hotel, which was just around the corner. The rest of the day I searched for a bicycle. Halfway the day I found a suitable second hand one, but tried the rest of the day find a better one. In the evening I returned to my earlier find and negotiated for an hour over the price, meanwhile drinking tea. At the end I could cycle back to my hostel, whıch was cleaner, the company nicer, slightly quieter (the same bar was around the corner) and where I could sleep on dormitory and it was cheaper as well. The next day I tried to find bags for on the bike or when those were not to be found, the proper material to have them made. I failed to find both. In the evening I drank with my Australian roommates gin till 4 in the morning, while I had planned to leave at 7 to start cycling. With only a delay of one and a half hour and a slight headache I left the hostel with my backpack strapped on my package carrier. It did not feel to stable but it did not fall off. I took the ferry to cross to the European side. I had decided to first go east to visit the monuments erected for the 500,000 fallen in WW1. I was cruising nicely, wind in the back, not to bad hills to climb. My destination of the day was Galipoli in exactly the opposite direction I was cycling. So at the end of the day I turned out to be fighting against the wind and totally exhausted I reached Galipoli in a heavy rain. Fortunately I could take shelter in a shed. My first day of cycling had given me a great feeling of freedom, but to be honest I had not expected it to be so straining. After dinner in town I am not able to find back my hotel. I have no clue what direction I should go. Fortunately I took a little card with the name of the hotel with me. The first person I asked for directions walked all the way with me to the hotel and then just left. I still have to get used to the Turkish hospitality. In the hotel I was welcomed by the owner and his help with tea, cherries and nuts. We tried to communicate, but their knowledge of English was very limited and my Turkish was non existent, so we did not exchange much thoughts. They found a booklet “how to say it in English” and with this we could get across slightly more thoughts. Later that evening a school class on school trip arrived accompanied by some teachers among them also the English teacher. He acted as interpreter and we finally could talk about the important stuff. I I ws married and what football club I favored. When we parted he gave me a wooden bracelet used for praying I have no idea why.

Next days I cycled to Istanbul via stops at Sarköy, Tekirdağ and Sevirli. Every day I arrived early in the afternoon or late in the afternoon at my destination of the day so I had plenty of time to checkout the places. I had lunches and breakfasts at deserted beaches at the Sea of Marmara. I saw dolphins also heading for Istanbul, although I later on in Istanbul did not see them again. Once I was cycling steep uphill for more than half an hour when I found out I was on the wrong road. The advantage of climbing on the wrong road is that I was back in the valley in about 5 minutes. It was not entirely my own fault as I had asked four people and all directed me in that direction.I had some gravel roads going up so steep I thought walking would be easier. This was not the case, pushing the bike was even harder work. The legs get tired from walking up, the arms from pushing the bike and me feet kept sliding away on the gravel. So as soon as the road let me I got back on the bike again and cycled as slowly as I could. After five days on June the 6th, I reached Istanbul. Finally time to rest my akeing legs.

Turkish delight

2006-06-14T17:56:00.000+02:00

Usually the first thing I do when I arrive in a town in which I want to stay is to search for a ho(s)tel. In Marmaris it was not different. I had already visited a few but was not happy with the price. Then a young man, in the age category I used to avoid asking questions to, asked me if I was looking for a hostel. After some hesitations I admitted. What I already feared happened he was leading me to a hostel. But to my big surprise when we arrived at it, he just said "here is it, bye bye", leaving me in astonishment. He did not ask for money or to visit his shop. At the reception of the hostel I met John an American, we shared a room together with a Japanese guy, I guess. I am not sure because any attempt from us (John and I) was met with an angry look and a growl so we soon stopped trying to make contact with him. Later at night we walked into town over the boulevard to get something to eat and I was impressed with the number of beautiful commercial yachts lying there. An other thing that could not be missed, not definitly positive, was the large amount of cafes, bars and discos with Dutch names. This town, without doubt, hosts a lot of young drunk English and Dutch people. Although I do not mind being drunk (once in a while) I had no desire to stay in the vicinity of those hordes. For one night it was ok, although it was a bit tame on the dance floor later at night.
The next morning I took the bus to Selçuk to visit Ephesus. Earlier in Morocco an archeologist had told me that Volubilis Rome and Ephesus were in the top five of Roman ruins. I missed Volubilis so I was sure not to miss Ephesus being so close to it. I stayed in Atilla's Getaway which John had recommended. Although it had a swimming pool and places you could lounge in the shade, I did not like the place much. It was to much like a resort and even far away from town. In the evening at the bar over a few beers I started to feel more at ease. They had told me it was easy to walk to Ephesus I just had to follow the path that started above the hostel. So that is what I did after breakfast next morning. Because I did not want to return I also took my backpack. Somehow I must have taken a wrong turn somewhere, although I recalled no places I could chose, but I did not find any sign of Ephesus. After I climbed the hill behind which I thought the ruins were I could see on the edge of the next hill some ruins. I was sure this must be Ephesus. With renewed energy I climbed up through the bushes and over the rocks to find only a long old, propably Roman, wall. No sign of Ephesus yet. After further climbing I saw a few hunderd meter below me the ruins of Ephesus. It was much to steep to go down, so I followed the wall, which must have been the first defence line of the old city and the goats who walked there as well and hoped I could go down further along the wall. After three hours of walking I finaly was at the bottom of the hill with a lot of scratches on my arms because of the dense brushes I had to go through at the end, but without my fleece. I hoped it had gotten stuck on the brushes I just went through. So I tried to go up the way as I went down, unsuccesfully, the only thing I got was extra scratches. I found the place I had gone in to the bushes the first time and this time I found my fleece hanging with a cord on branch. Now with my fleece and again some more scratches I went on the final descent to Ephesus. I now had walked so long and had seen a lot of Ephesus form above I did not feel like entering the site anymore, also because my left foot still hurt.

I walked to Selçuk to have lunch, where I met Dirk a Belgium guy. He was traveling with a little truck and caravan and he invited me to travel with him to Pamukkale. I could sleep in the caravan if I liked. After the dinner, Dirk cooked in the truck and a few cans of efes beer it was time to go to sleep. It became clear Dirk did not feel like preparing another bed in the caravan, but invited me with him in his bed. I thought this not a good idea and I opted for sleeping in the cabin of the truck. Although the cabin was not so wide as I am tall, but I am sure that I slept better than I would have by sharing a bed with Dirk. Next morning after elaborate breakfast and doing the dishes with water heated on the roof of the truck we headed for Pamukalle. Soon I found out that we were not going to reach it on the same day. Dirk choose to visit all sites that were indicated by a brown sign (culturaly interesting) on our route and we drove maximum 60 km/h but most of the time close to 40. The first few sites we visited were not impressive. Nissa however was great. It had an almost fully intact theater and also other roman builings were in not to bad a shape. Of course I had my suspicions but it became clear that Dirk was gay and that he fancied me. I do not know what it is with me, I guess my boyish charm must awaken something in gay men. Unfortunately this thing that makes a mens heart run faster does not work on girls. At least I do not notice any effect. Travelling with the truck and caravan was great though. We could stop where we liked and camp, in the middle of town or just in the middle of nowhere. The next day we took another big detour which led us to Afrodisias. This site was amazing. Apart from it's beautiful theater and baths, Afrodisias had an intact stadium with a length of 130 meters totally surrounded with at least 10 rows of seats. Some seats were decorated as they had belonged to important sponsors, like vipboxes. The town even had a giant swimming pool 100 meters in length which was as impressive as the enormous stadium. The next day we finally reached Pamukalle, normally a daytrip from Selçuk and it was a bit of a disappointment. We had seen so much on the way that it did not really matter. Dirk had two bikes with him in the truck with which we cycled everyday. Together with stories from Dirk how he had travelled through countries by bike and the stories of the two Austrians I had met in Mali, made me decide I wanted to cycle as well. Dirk regretted that he had put the idea in my head, but the next day I took some busses to go to Çanakkale in the north west of Turkey to buy a bicycle and cycle through Turkey for as long as I liked it.

Rhodos

2006-06-01T19:39:00.001+02:00

Early in the morning I arrived in the beautiful town of Rhodes. It has a well preserved old city center with ancient walls and the works. I decided I did not want to linger in the city as I did not accidentally run into Taco and Iljoesja. I decided to hitchhike south along the east coast. Most cars on Rhodes are rented by tourists and I found out that they seem not keen on taking hitch hikers or at least me. So I did not get very far from Rhodes city. I could have taken one of the buses but decided to just stay at the beach I hiked to while trying to get a ride. Early next morning I woke up with the feeling my upper lip was huge. It must have been stung by a insect. If it really was as it felt you can see at the picture I took to assess the damage as no mirror was near.

From the beach I now took a bus back to Rhodes city, having no confidence in any people willing to take me (my lip would not have helped me I guess). Now I decided to walk down the west coast to Lalyssos, the place Taco and Iljoesja rented an apartment. Again I could not find a nicely priced hotel and I now choose to sleep in the hills. I had settled nicely but had to text message Taco as he wanted to pick me up the next morning in Rhodes-city. This of course gave away I already was on the island and I was promptly invited for dinner, which I did not turn down. I wanted to meet them badly. Although I had frequent contact with Taco the previous months it felt really good to be goıng to fınally meet him and Iljoesja after the these months.

It took me a while before I could find them, also because I had not written down the name of the apartment complex correctly. When I walked past it, the name resembled the name on my note but I dismissed it as the place to be. It took some text messages to eventually get me at my desired destination. Their first reaction to me was that I lost weight. I had not really noticed that, I always was thin (skinny), may be they just had a incorrect thicker image of me. Iljoesja had dinner ready and we ate on the balcony, so I immediately could work on my weight

The next days we took it easy with a few occasions of activity. We twice rented bicycles for a day. They were only slightly more expensive than buying a bus ticket to Rhodes-city where we had dinner at the nights we rented them. At the same time it is fun to cycle especially at the seaside at dusk. One night our diner was paid for by my brother‘s parents so we ate slightly more expensive than the night before. After sleeping the first night at Taco and Iljoesja’s (T&I) place I decided it was better that I slept on my own, they also deserved a nice holiday of course. We did a little tour through the village in search of a cheap room, the cheapest turned out to be the one we visited first. Although still expensive in my view the location was pretty good, being just a couple of hundreds meter away from T&I. Other activities were few, we did some sightseeing in Rhodes-city a small bike tour and played some games of “boonanza” and once “Carcassonne”, Taco and I fooled around the swimming pool with a foam rugby ball, after an hour all other guests had left. Iljoesja every morning prepared breakfast, Taco and I should not have let her, she already did the too much, but it was so convenient. My apologies Iljoesja, I am not a bad person, just a bit lazy. On the 24th of May I got going again. After breakfast with T&I, prepared by Iljoesja, finished by a home made ice coffee, I took the bus to Rhodes city to take the ferry to Marmaris, Turkey. Iljoesja has made me a “survival” bag, with food and drinks. I had expected the ferry to leave at one o’clock but it sails only at four thirty. I kill the time by reading one of the books I got from T&I and by plundering by “survival”bag. The ferry is a rip off, although you almost can see the Turkish harbor and the trıp takes less than an hour a ticket costs 31 euro plus 19 euro taxes. At arrival a visa needs to be bought, it is not expensive, ten euro, but in total it cost me 60 euro to go to Turkey. It better be worth while!

Boats and trains

2006-06-01T19:35:00.000+02:00

İ arrived early in the terminal of La Goulette near Tunis for the ferry to Palermo to be certain İ could get a ticket, of course this was pointless. The offices only opened a two hours before departure, but my bus from Tabarka arrived in the afternoon and İ did not feel like wandering through the streets of Tunis. İ had seen enough of Tunisia. When the office finally was open and all the queues gone İ tried to buy my ticket. Unfortunately they only accepted cash Tunisian dinars. İ did not have any also because you are not allowed to export more than a 100 and are not able to trade them outside the country. İ walked back to La Goulette to take the necessary cash from an ATM. The first one was out of order, the second one as well and the third did not except my card. Finally İ found a working machine and put in my card and punched in the proper keys. Than to my horror nothing happened for more than a minute. During that time İ feared had to stay another (semi) week in Tunis to retrieve my card. Fortunately eventually the machine went into action and handed back my card and the requested money.

The voyage to Palermo was comfortable and İ managed to sleep quite well on 4 neighbouring chairs in the Rome room. Palermo was beautiful, but quiet, it was Sunday morning. The only problem was that the few İtalians İ did meet, did not speak any English and could not help me with the directions to the train station. However İ soon ran into two American travelers with a Lonely Planet who also were searching for the station. İ helped them read the map and together we found the station. The train ride was beautiful, luxurious nearly empty carriages and to the left (when facing in the direction of the head of train) great views of the sea (sometimes only three meters away) and to the right views of mountains and villages. In Messina the train with me in it, embarked a ferry and soon we arrived at the Italian mainland. İ tried to find a cheap hotel, but did not succeed. Propably my view of cheap shifted slightly during my stay in Africa. İ decided to try to take a night train to Bari. Although not easy it was possible, but meant İ had to wait for two and a half hour in the middle of the night somewhere close to Napoli. This of course was no problem. İ even almost missed the train because at the last moment they changed the platform the train left from and İ was not aware of it. In the morning İ arrived in Bari. With the ferry to Patras only leaving at 18:00 İ had plenty of time to explore the town and harbor. İ found out they Bari fishermen have a special way of cleaning the underside of their boats. With their feet in the boat and head in a floating dustbin they could reach even to lowest point of the boat. It looked funny though.

Sleeping on the boat to Patras was less comfortable then the one to Palermo, but much better than sleeping in a crowded night train. The floors of some decks were covered with carpet, what made a fine sleeping surface. If they had not wakened me at 4:00 to tell me İ had to disembark, İ would have had a nice night of sleep. When İ finished packing in hurry, it turned out it was not the final destination yet so İ could go back to sleep. The bus brought me to famous Athens. İ already had chosen a place to stay and this time it was easy to find. My brother text messaged İ should stay a while in Athens, so he could spend some well deserved free time with his girlfriend İljoesja before İ would stir things up. This seems not hard to do, Athens is a big city and supposedly there is a lot to see and do. İ was bored with it after 2 days though and took the ferry to Rhodes 2 days early anyway. Maybe the city was not what İ wished for, but that did not apply to the roommates İ had the second night. The three Americans shared their wine and cookies with me and we had a wonderful time. We even managed to get a warning of the police for being to loud, which we were not of course, but that might also have been because the police station were all around us and they had nothing (better to do). İ had planned to watch the final of the champions league, İ was particular interested because İ was in the final of the paidiagames champions league as well. My team did excellent without my attention, Taco text messaged me that and Barcelona and my team Victoria Ceilero had claimed victory. A good night. The next day İ went to Piraeus to take a ferry to Rhodes.

Tiny Tunesia tour

2006-06-01T18:44:00.000+02:00

Most of the time İ am to lazy (or caught up in other activities, the friendlier view) to prepare anything when going to a new destination, this time İ at least had determined where to stay in Tunesia. İ was very happy with myself when İ asked the cab driver to bring me from the airport to the Youth Hostel. This happiness vanished when İ realised that apart for asking too much money the driver also handed me a one dinar coin when he should have given me fıve dinar. He was not allowed to drop me at the door of the hostel, no cars are allowed in the medina, but he could have stopped at a place it would have been much easier to find the hostel. Just another bad experience with cab drivers. They seem to be the same in every country. İn pitch dark İ tried to find my way through the deserted and dirty medina. Fortunately İ met a (good looking) girl who led me to the hostel. When she invited me to show me the medina my standard decline came before İ knew it and İ was on my own the rest of the night, İ am (sometimes) such a loser.

What İ already thought to have seen in the evening became more apparent the next day, Tunis, apart from the medina, looks like a southern French town. İ don’t dislike French towns, but was disappointed to find it in Africa. A little bit more luxuoury is nice, but this felt out of place. İ decided İ did not want to stay to long in Tunesia. An other reason not to linger in Tunesia was that İ wanted to meet my brother and his girlfriend somewhere in the period May 15 to 26, when they would enjoy their holliday on Rhodos. İ met Jake, an starting American writer and we decided to do a short trip through Tunesia. We visited Cartage together and concluded that the Romans had done a pretty good job in destroying it, but that the people after them were no slouches either. Jake was going for a definitive picture of Tunesia, in La Goulette on the way back from Carthage to Tunis he got it. When he found out that the ferry to Malta, his preferred next stop would only sail the next day, he decided he had seen enough of Tunesia and would leave the next day. Although not hugely impressed with Tunesia İ felt İ had not seen enough yet and decided to go south to Sousse.
At night in the hostel İ fortunately met another American, his name İ never was sure of. İ thought İ heard him say his name was Pete when talking to another guy, so thats what İ called him, but never to loud. İ had asked for his name when we met, but as often happens with me İ am to busy saying my own name, that İ forget to listen to what the other says. Then after knowing the person for a day and doing things together İ did not have the guts ask for it again. The next day we said goodbye to Jake and Pete and İ took the train to Sousse. There we shared a room, fortunately there were two beds. (İ once shared a double bed with my best friend and İ did not sleep a wink and that was not because of a lot of activity;-). Pete ended up wearing my only shorts though. We bought a sandwich shoarma to go and instantly the grease dripped on our pants. Pete wanted to immediatly clean them, mine already were in a disastrous state, the few extra stains propably would not be notıced, but washed mine anyway. Pete had brought only one pair of trousers, whereas İ brought 2. İ offered Pete to use my shorts but he declined. He decided to stay in the room until his pants were dry, İ went out to walk through the old town and go to an internet cafe to read mail and possibly update my log (which İ obviously did not do). When İ returned to the room the door was locked and İ knocked a few times and called a few times for Pete, but never very loud, because it most likely was not his name. After a while İ left assuming Pete had gone out, wearing my shorts. İ went back into town and returned after an hour, same procedure same result. İ went down stairs and watched a Tunesian soap series ın Arabic with the locals. After an hour the series had ended, İ went up again and found the door open. Pete said he never had left the room. A wise lesson for me, always ask for someones name (if İ want to know it of course)

After a night with lots of sleep we took the train of 8:00 to El Jem a small town with a huge a well preserved Roman amphitheater. Pete wanted to go to the beach. İ wanted to be back in Tunis on Saturday to take the ferry to Sicily, which gave me not enough time to visit and the beach and the other places İ thought worthwhile to visit. Together we took two louages (a shared taxi that only leaves when full, not African full, but when every by the car manufacturor intended seat is taken), first to Sfax and without waiting time one to Gabes. From there İ took the bus south to Matamata. İ stayed in a hotel that was used for a couple of starwars movies. The hotel was totally underground, only the courtyards had day light and all the rooms had a door to one of the courtyards. The courtyards were an open hole in the ground. İt was a very nice system, this way there was enough light and at the same time the rooms were cool.From Matmata İ went to Tozeur in the west of the country. İ am not sure why İ wanted to visit this particular city, anyway it failed to impress me on arrival. İt propably had something to do with the salt planes that were closeby. Unfortunatly İ had expected huge planes, white as far as the eye could see, in reality it was only a relatively small area with salt. Apart from that, it took me more than two hours to find the place İ wanted to sleep. An example of when preparation has a bad effect, İ could have gone to plenty of other sleeping places (at the same time you could argue İ should have prepared more). From Tozeur İ went via Gafsa to El Kef. This at first was a disappointment, but after reaching the old town I was pleasanly surprısed. İ even managed to walk over the old town wall, from where İ had a magnificent view over the town and the surrounding lands as El Kef is built on a hill.

The next morning İ took the early bus to Jendouba, from where it should be easy to visit Bulla Regia. A ruin of a Roman town, which is famous for the underground built rooms. İ asked a cab driver how far it was to walk and he told me it would be maximum four km. İ thought this to be a good walking distance and took of. After 200m İ saw a sign indicating Bulla Regia to be 8 km away. Still doable but less apealing, İ am a bit of a stubborn person so after deciding to go on foot İ kept on going. Wıth my pants and shirt soaking wet of sweat İ arrived at the famous ruin, which better be worthwhile the hike. İt was. Not only beautifully preserved rooms underground also nice intact structures above the ground. When İ had seen enough İ walked back to the road from Jendouba to Tabarka (my next destination). İ had the idea to hitch hike, take a passing louage or bus, İ did not want to walk the remaining six km back to Jendouba. Hitch hiking did not work out, the louages that passed were all full, which makes sense, so İ had to wait for the bus.
When İ entered the harbour of the small town at the coast in the northwest of Tunesia, where it is not crowded with resorts yet, İ noticed a Dutch caravan. İ thought it to be nice to meet a fellowcountry man, but soon it became clear there was a whole herd of them. They were there with the ANWB camping club and had been together in Tunesia for already a month. İ was surprised everybody was still alive, İ guess İ would have died or killed when travelling in a group like that for so long. Still my Dutch nature played up. İ had seen a beautiful beach without any buildings closeby in the distance and was on my way there, when İ saw a little stream flowing in to the sea. İ just had to try to build a dam in it. After two hours of non-stop working İ had managed to raise the water level of the little lake that had formed before the dam, but still the water was flowing. İ was short of big stones, but most of all İ was short of energy and drinking water. At the same time my legs and back were badly burnt, İ was only wearing my underwear. Although İ have spent three months in constant sun, only my head and upper arms have been exposed to the sun, so İ was just as white as an Englishman. İ struggled back to the hotel and was glad İ found a little shop where they sold soda. The next day İ went back to Tunis to take the night ferry of the 14th of May (to indicate it is a while ago, it definitly was a Saturday so it might have been an other date) to Palermo.

Flying

2006-05-11T20:01:00.000+02:00

One of the few resolutions I had this trip was not to fly, but t seems that sticking to plans/resolutions is not my strongest point. I flew from Niamey to Tunis, which should not have to take longer than 3.5 hours, I managed to be underway for 44 hoursTo my surprise I found out, from the monitor in the plain that we were flying via Bamako. After a short stop we went to Algiers, where we arrived according to schedule at 6 in the morning. Because I had not been able to acquire a visa to spend a night in Algiers, I was to stay at the airport. To be certain that I would not leave they took my passport and my ticket. They put me in a little waitingroom without windows, but with Algerian television on for 24 hours. I was not allowed to leave the room, but to go to the toilet. Fortunately I had traded a book with the doorman in Niamey. Although it was an English classic and a love story I was very happy with it because it had over 500 pages. Once in a while I was desturbed in my reading, with the delivery of food. I got as many plane meals as I wanted and as they were quite different from the meals I had been eating for the last two months, much appreciated. At night my bed was a folded cartboardbox, but I slept well on it.

The next morning I was alowed in the boarding area, though several shops with food were present in this area, I could not buy anything because I did not have any Algerian money. I had finished my book the previous day, so the only thing I could do was wait. This is something I got good at as I had a lot of practice the previous months. Still I did not have my passport and ticket/boarding card and I felt a little nervous about it, so I decided I would come in to action at 12 o'clock. At the moment I went to a police officer to inquire after my papers, an airport man delivered me my passport, boarding pass and 2 coupons for free meals at a cafetaria. In the meantime I had grown rather hungry so I went to cash in on one of the coupons. My flight was scheduled for four o'clock. I do not know the reason but the plane we were supposed to take left without us. Fortunately an other arrived. In the meantime my luggage was lying outside. Normally not much of a problem, but what I had not seen for about 2 months happened, it started to rain, hard. I had not protected my bag with the raincover, and I hoped that my bag was waterresistant of itself. After a delay of a couple of hours I was finally able to board and could I undertake the last 45 minute of my flying trip.

Agadez and back again

2006-05-06T17:47:00.000+02:00

After a 12 hour busride I arrived ahead of schedule in Agadez. I called the number that was given to me by Thorsten and hoped an Anne would answer it. To my relieve she did and she directed me to a restaurant in the centre. To get there I took a climbed on the back of a motor, the preferred taxi transport up here. Anne welcomed me to here house, that I would not have found on my own. Anne lived at the first floor and I had the choice from 4 beds to sleep. While Anne was at work I had the whole place for myself and when she was at home a nice person to talk to. Although it is nice to be travelling, I appreciated the rest and the feeling of not having to do much. Most of the time I read books from the library guestquarters in the house. I also tried to arrange my visa for Algeria, but was not succesfull. To be able to cross the border I needed an offically stamped offer from a travel agence in Tamanrasset, the first big town in Algeria, that they would provide me with a guide from the border to Tamanrasset. I never managed to find a agence to deliver me the service, but I must admit I have not done my utmost, as I heard from locals it would cost me several hunderd Euros, because I would also need to rent a car with it. Apparantly a guide does not want to hitch hike on trucks, my initial plan.

In the meantime I was not feeling to great. I was tired all the time, felt feverish sometimes and constantly had a light headache. Anne told me it might be malaria and after a few days I decided to pay the doctor a visit, to check my blood. Those who know me, know I now had to be careful of not fainting. Even a not very bloody story can turn me green, a visit to a doctor and having blood being taken is even more serious for me. (I have to be careful I do not faint now;-). I managed to stand straight for the moments it took to take the blood, but while I waited on the results, the doctor asked me if I wanted to lie down, because I was looking so pale. I gladly did and stayed in this position for 20 minutes. After the 20 minutes the doctor could tell me I had malaria and a shortage of iron. The malaria could easily be helped, just eat 24 pills in three days, four at the time and should be cured. The iron problem was a slightly trickier problem. I should eat more liver or spinage. Liver I do not like, but can eat once in a while, spinage I do like, but where do I get it from in the middle of the desert? Propably I will be in more luxuouries places soon, may be there I can get some of the vegetables there.

After a week in Agadez I felt I could not longer burden Anne with my intrusion in her privacy and went back to Niamey. The busride was fortunately very comfortable as I still was not feeling to well, I still was taking the anti malaria pills. I for the whole trip a row of chairs to lie on. During the trip I met a Nigerien who adressed me in Dutch. Whe had read my hartstichting sack in which I always carry my food and drinks. He had lived for three years in Den Haag, but was not accepted as asielzoeker and sent out of the country by Minister Verdonk, as he said. It is a shame he had to leave as he spoke Dutch so well, while there are so many who do not speak it a word, who can stay.

In Niamey I returned to my old sleeping place, where I was given a warm welcome by all the doormen I passed walking to the house. At every place I had to explain where I had been for the last week as they had missed me. It felt like coming home and this makes Niger for me a beautiful country, the people are so friendly. This would never happen to me in Holland. In the case the passage I continued what I had been doing in Agadez. Most of the time I sat down with the doormen, playing "klaverjassen" or just commenting on the girls walking by in the street. I also discovered the little plastic sacs with flavoured yoghurt, banana is my favourite and every other hour I fetched one at the local alimntation. On the night before I left there was a small party (of 4) to celebrate the 33rd birthday of one of the two doormen of my place. The gardenboy, a student, brought a few cartons of wine and we bought some local dough with fishsauce for dips. Next morning, with wooden head, I was invited to the gardenboys house to watch dvds, he was from a rich family, they even had a pool. After that we went to the house of the doorman, his house consisted of four brick walls with an aluminum roof and no dvd player. But Amadou was proud to show me one of his wives, he also has one in Ghana, and his two little doughters. The youngest was not even 2 months old. At around 5 I left for the airport by taxi. I was advised not to go directly but first go to grand marche and from there take a taxi to the airport as that would be much cheaper.

Niamey

2006-04-29T11:51:00.001+02:00

I have been stalling my post in the hope anything interesting would happen I could write about. No such luck and if I do not write now, the danger exists my blog will die a quiet death. With nothing to write about that might happen anyway of course, but what is a death of a blog? Enough of the babbling let's start with the nothing.

Although Niamey was described to me as a dump, I was impressed by its looks. Not that it is beautiful or has (many) touristic sites, but it looks relatively well organized, has a lot of asphalt roads and even some tall buildings and places with street lightings. I believe in the seventies uranium was found in the north of Niger and with prices sky high, money was available in abundance. From these times stem the fancy looking big buildings. When uranium price plummeted the country all of a sudden was poor as a church rat. I wonder what the country would have looked like if they had spent their money on education and irrigation projects?

Still Niamey has friendly inhabitants and I have enjoyed myself, I wish it would be a little bit less hot, today temperature rose to 47 Celsius, they said. I staid in the case de passage of the Deutsche Entwicklung Dienst(?)(DED). The previous week there had been a gathering of all DED staff in Niger. Thorsten, still was there, awaiting the arrival of his girl-friend and 2 friends. Thorsten was so nice to take me to good spots to eat in the evening and took me with him when visiting his friends in Niamey. He even arranged a place for me to stay in Agadez with a colleague, Anne. In Niamey a lot of Embassies are present so I made an embassy tour to find out my options for traveling further. Lybia only gave visa to local people; Algeria said their consulate in Agadez managed overland border crossings into Algeria and maybe they would allow me one; Chad was no problem but on the same day a civil war broke out! I did not want to go south so my only option was to go north to Agadez.

Timbuctu, just a name?

2006-04-28T20:42:00.000+02:00

Early in the morning I managed to arrange a ride with an aid of a businessman. The price was rather high, but an eighth of yesterdays price, so relatively ok. At the moment of departure the businessman did not want to take me on his car as he said he was not public transport. Fortunately one of the boatworkers knew him and managed to convince him I was good people. His reluctance to take me, I was not able to overcome and he dropped me at the ultimate south of the city. Although it was before 7 it already started to warm up. I wanted to see the city anyway and now I was forced to, so what am I complaining about? The city was crowded with police, army and predominantly white 4x4 cars. Timbuctu happened to host a big African summit. Khadaffi also was giving acte the presence, which apparantly was felt as a big thing. Everywhere in the city were posters with Khadaffi, banners welcoming him as the great African leader. Loads of people were wearing t-shirts with a picture of Khadaffi and many children had Lybian banknotes, which the Lybians had been handing out.
Another consequence of the summit was that much of the accomodation was taken, also the one I had planned to visit. Fortunately I met someone who happened to be at hotel Sahara Passion and, what a coincidence, still had a room available. At that time I already had been roaming through the famous city for 3 hours, because no one had known my prefered sleeping place, so I agreed to go with him. The place was actualy quite nice. I decided to stay for a night and decide further the next day. First I took a short but much needed shower, it had been more than a week since I took one. As my money supply was in desparate need of replanishment, I textmessaged my brother if he could send me some money via Western Union. Taco came quick to the rescue and after some messages back and forth all was arranged. When I arrived at the bank, at the very south of the town, it should have been closed for a couple of hours already. This time the African way was to my advantage. I managed to retrieve my much needed cfas in the dying seconds of the extended opening hours. Later that day, when the sun was a little bit less hot, I managed to find some energy to explore more of the city, but most I had already seen in the morning. The city did not succeed in enchanting me, it is like mopti, djenne and all those little villages we passed on the river a lot of mud stacked up. In Timbuctu even the people are less friendly, they are realy accustomed to tourists. Especcialy the children are very anoying. Their standard reportoire goes like this: Monsieur, cava? Donne m'un cadeau. The best reaction is no reaction, then they will usually go away in 1 minute. When you feel you can't be so blunt and do respond, it can happen they will only go away when you go into a shop for a while.

The next day I decided I had seen enough of the once great and powerfull city and would leave for Gao. I was lucky and met a guy who would take me, we only had to wait a few moments for the wife of the boss as she was doing some last minute shopping. Ofcourse this was not done in a few minutes, women are the same everywhere, give them some money and they will not return in hours. When finally the woman returned with her hard bargained newly acquired stuff, again the boss of the car did not want to take me and this time there was no one to convince him otherwise. This was particularly bad as by the time the wife returned several hours had passed and many of the 4x4's had already left Timbuctu. My only chance was the bus station. To my luck they assured me that definitely a car would leave for Gao, departure time unknown. Nothing to do but wait until enough people showed up to go. After 4 hours the guy came back to me, to excuse him, the car would not leave today. If I wanted I could go in the back of a truck on top of the cargo. The truck would go to Douentza. From an old geezer sitting next to me I learned that was not a bad direction as it was on the road from Bamako to Gao. I climbed on the truck to find about 10 fellow travellers. At first is was quite comfortable, but after about 20 km the truck was filled up with empty oil drums, which are much less soft then ricebags, we were previously sitting on. The drums were not the worst though, it was the big spare truckradiator bumping to the back of my head with every hole in the road that got to me. Halfway Douentza something in the steeringhouse of the truck broke. If it was because we hit a concrete pole or that we hit it after it broke, fact was that we had to stop. Chauffeurs are quite resourceful in Africa and after half an hour the problem was solved and we could move again. After an hour something had to be tighted on the steering, but we did not run in any problems afterwards. At 1:30 we arrived at Douentza, where I tried to sleep by the road until one of the busses arrived. I did not catch any sleep as the first bus arrived within the hour. They still had plenty of place, although it has by definition more space than a bus of the same size in Holland. E.g. in one row are 5 chairs, 3 left and 2 right from the aisle. At 9 in the morning we arrived in Gao.

The truckbus to Niamey was to leave the same day in just one hour. I decided to take it, who knows when the next one would go. I had been in crowded transports before, but this was definite a new personal record. The compartment was long full when they kept on pooring passengers in. The strategy was, see a spot that is not a head and let your self down until you touch something hard. I thought I had taken a good spot at the door, at least some space for my legs and a window I could stick my arm through. Before we left, my legspace was annihilated with cans with water and my armspace turned out to be annoying as I now had no way of resting my had anywhere.

At the beginning we were making good progress and I hoped I would be in Niamey in the evening. This changed dramatically when we reached Labaganza. There the piste ended and the driver had to find his own way to the Malinese side of the border. Average speed dropped to about 20 km/h. The Nigerien side was even worse, often at a speed below walking pace we conquered holes and bumps. I was the only white guy on the bus, consequently the whole bus had to wait for me at the Nigerien side of the border. Local people do not need a visa, I do. Although I already had mine and the driver tried to speed things up with the customs it took a considerable amount of time. The people did not seem to mind though, time is something they have plenty of. After second passport control the road improved, I should say there was a road again and at 4:00 we arrived in Niamey. I decided to sleep in the street, I had no clue where I was and where I should go.

River cruise

2006-04-15T17:57:00.000+02:00

When we finally left, the Irish were not totally comfortable. They would have to be in Accra next sunday. Seemed like a lot of time but the prognosed travel time by the captain was 4 nights and already we had a delay of 1 day. After sailing 800 meters we stopped for about an hour, no clue why, then we sailed another km and stopped again. The Irish had enough of it and wanted to get to shore and take a 4x4 to Timbuctu. Just at that time we left and the Irish would have to wait with disembarking. Now the plan was to do this at niafounke the next big village on the route, which we should reach in the evening the next day. It seemed that now we really got going, but we had loads of problems with the water level. Constantly we had to search for the least shallow parts to motor through. Often we were grounded and the boats (alongside the biggest pinasse, with the motor, was a slightly smaller piroque without a motor) had to be pushed.
The next day we leave at 8:00, rather late and have rice for breakfast (every meal turns out to be rice) This day we manage to cover I think only 10 km. We get stuck at every bend and the boats have to be untied and separatly pushed through the shallow waters. At 12 we got stuck so bad it takes the rest of the day to pass. Also the 3 toubabs do their best to get the boats through and their help is much appreciated. For the Irish very frustrating, they are pressed for time, but for me fun to do, although I would not have minded this was our last day of kirikiri (moving the boat back and forth, front to the left, rear to the right and viceversa to get the boat afloat again)
This time an early start 5:30, but after 500 meters we are stuck, all people, except the kids, women and elderly, help out and after a good hours work we are moving again. I helped pushing the first boat and decide not to go back to push the bigger boat. Instead I go ashore to see what a village looks like from ashore. At that time I thought I better should not miss the boat, because life could be rather difficult in only my boxershorts and t)shirt. I returned to the river and swim to back to the little piroque. Unfortunately there is no shade on this boat and I am rather sunburnt when the the pinasse joins us. We get our hopes up of finally having overcome the last difficulty but this turned out in vain. Before lac Debo, some of our cargo is offloaded in two sailing piroques as the lake is even more shallow than the river. This does ofcourse help, but not enough. We have to push the 2 boats one after the other for large parts of the lake. After the lake we load back the earlier offloaded cargo and even get some extra from another ship. This really annoys us, as we already were heavy loaded. After this we start sailing again and there is hope we will sail on through the night, again idle hope, we are not allowed, we have no light. This time I try to sleep on the shore, I slept even worse than on the boat, so that I will not try again. In the morning we get stuck right away, the toubabs do not help as they are angry that the boat was loaded with extra cargo, while they knew the boats were already lying deep in the water. Without the help of the white the job gets done, so it is apparent that you can just do as well without them. Rest of the day no huge problems only stuck a few times. We see our first hippo, that is to say, a small part of his head and loads of birds. At night the toubabs go to a little village to see if they can buy some food, to eat something other than rice. We find no food but we are invited to sit with the locals. Tadhg gets even a little baby on his lap, that throws up over him and his bag. Soon after we decide to leave to another hut. There they have a radio that plays some music and I dance a while with a few girls and women. Afterwards we secretly eat pears from a can the Irish brought, delishes, a welcome change to the rice dishes. On Saturday we finally reach niafounke and the Irish go from board, I get all the remaining drinking water, as it is hard to predict how long the trip will take. At the same time a lamp is bought to enable night travelling. A new phenomenon appears, after an hour we have to stop because of to much wind. The wind creates waves and they collide with the side of the big pinasse and from there go into the lower piroque. I cover a large part of the gap between the boats at the front with a sleeping mat left behind by the Irish, to prevent the water from coming in over the side. The boat people do not think much of it and we keep on waiting. After an hour although the wind is still the same, but the water that comes in is less because of my litle screen. Gozou the guy in charge of the engine wants me to send a picture I took of him to his address, when I ask what his address is he does not know it. I am now the only toubab aboard and the boatpeople are involving me more in their affairs. I now get served tea when they have some, Seckou, who almost knows the alphabet wants me to teach him to read. I try to come up with easy French words but that is not that simple. Many are pronounced differently then they are written. Still it makes a lot of fun. I let Ba the son of the captain and his burkinese friend play with my fotocamera and they love it. I also take pictures of the crew and promise to send it to them. The 8 of them know of only 1 address I can send it to, but that ofcourse is enough.

On the last day of our voyage we encounter high winds causing our little piroque almost to sink. Again I covered the gap between the pinasse and the prioque again with the sleeping mat and an old blanket that was not used only the engine guy Gozu helped me as he desperately wanted to return to Mopti. After four hours of waiting we got going again although the wind had not seriously deminished. Still water was falling into the boat, but considerable less than before. At one stage the two boats had to be separated because tied together they could not pass the shallowness. When we left again with the boats next to each other, but without my screen a lot of water splashed in the piroque, making all the grainsacs wet. Then I had my greatest moment of the day. The captain ordered the other guys to make a screen as I had done. They left some space open at the front and when I wanted to cover that as well I got loads of help and was complemented on my work. I am curious if they will also use it in situations in the future aswell?
Finally late in the evening (Monday) we reached the harbour of Timbuctu, it is to late for me to go to Timbuctu and I decide to sleep one last night on the ship.

Djenne and Mopti a lot of mud

2006-04-15T15:54:00.000+02:00

Up early to catch an early bus to Djenne to arrive before it gets dark. I am lucky and get a ride from a scooter to the busstation and he even does not want money for it, I am surprised and give him some anyway. I let me convince me to buy a ticket to Djenne at one office before the bus has arrived. This proved a stupid thing to do, as loads of busses of other companies arrived, but none for mine. After 4 hours my transport arrived, I deliberately do not say bus as it is a mercedes van. I had asked explicitly if it would be a bus and had pointed to one and they had confirmed. I am very angry and refuse to get in. After a long argument with not to many words, my knowledge of the French language is still very limited, I finally get in the van, but I am allowed to sit next to the driver, still I have to share my seat with a women with her child. I am sitting at the window, so I can stick my arm out of the window and catch some fresh hot air. The problem with the taxi vans is that they stop everywhere. If someone waves at the side of the road, the van stops and tries to get the person and/or his luggage aboard. My van is no exception to this rule and we stop often and long. We transported people, upto 24, wood for boats, aluminium roof parts, bags of rice, potatos and of course the normal luggage. They tried to let me pay extra for my bag but I refused and said I would carry it on my lap. Not to convenient, but this was a matter of princeples, after half an hour the driver allows me to put my bag on the roof free of charge, a little victory that increased comort as well. Still I could not enjoy the ride. Of course we arrived late at the destination, which was not Djenne, but Djenne carrefour, 30 km from Djenne. At 8 I could not find a taxi driver to bring me to Djenne unless I found 8 other people to join me to fill the peugeot 504. I arranged with a guy who had little shop in a shack that I could sleep there if I would not find a ride to Djenne. At 11 a taxi van arrived who went to Djenne and would drop me off at chez baba, the place I wanted to stay. For CFA2500 I got a place on the roof with view on the famous mosque and large other parts of the town. There were poles to tie my mosquito net to, so all was perfect.

Next day I walked through town, initially trailed by a guide. After a quarter of an hour I finnaly could make clear to him I did not want his services and would definitely not pay him. After the guy left I finally could enjoy the city. Around midday I had seen what was to be seen and tried to find a taxi out. In the central square I wrote down my name on a paper with a fellow coordinating the taxis and they would fetch me at chez baba when the taxi would be filled and ready to go. In chez baba I was invited to join a guy to have a great view of the mosque when the friday prayers were done. I went with him to the central square where he tried to arrange a place on one of the buildings facing the mosque. They owners would not let him and I said I did not want it anyway, expecting I would have to pay him in the end. I took some pictures from the mosque from ground level, when he told me that I had to pay CFA 500, because I had taken pictures of the mosque on a friday. I asked him to whom I should pay this and he pointed to an old man, just sitting on the square. I laughed at the guy and said he was telling nonsense and even the little boy sitting next to me he said he was lying. I returned to chez baba and waited the rest of the 3 hours, before we left to Mopti.

It took only 15 minutes before the engine broke down. The vehicules are not to modern, making repairs to it relatively simple and after half an hour we were moving again. Until Mopti we only had to stop twice more, once for another repair job on the engine. The other time was when we all had to get out of the car to cross the river on foot. Te car with only the driver was able to make it aswell. Before nightfall I was able to find mission catholique. Again I had chosen to stay with the catholiques as the previous stay with them pretty ok. Also this time I had to wait a long whil for the sisters, now they were all at mass.

Mopti like Djenne has many mudbricked buildings and I think the old town of Mopti is not much different then Djenne. I was happy that I had visited Djenne first or else it most likely would have been a disappointment.
In the mission Imet 2 nice German girls who had worked on an orphanage in Bamako for a month and had stayed with a local family. They had just visited Dogon country as a sort of holiday before going home. They were very nice company, unfortunately they went south again to visit Djenne, with the last of their money. This was the reason that they moved to an other hotel as that one was CFA 2000 cheaper a night and that was the difference for them to having diner or not. I regretted that, because I would not have mind to spent some more time with them. They left and to Irish guys came in. They wanted to go to Timbuctu by boat, like me. We decided to travel to gether and found one cargo pinasse who would take us. It set us back more than expected, but at least we would go. The boat would leave on monday at 10 in the morning. That ofcourse did not happen. It turned out that it only left the next day at that time, leaving Tony, one of the Irish, and me enough time to bring another visit to the local bar and have some beers (of 1 liter). I decided to sleep on the ship, Tadgh, the other Irish and Tony stayed for the night at the mission. Which was also good for me as I could shower there and get some fresh water.

Concert, swimming, football

2006-04-12T12:45:00.000+02:00

At the station in Bamako we tried to arrange a taxi for the six westeners to the hotel, Mission Catholique. Of course it was not possible to have more than 3 passengers in 1 taxi, while normally they trie to cram 6 to 9 persons into 1 taxi, but ok. After a lot of negotiating, I arranged that 2 taxis would bring us for CFA 2000 per taxi. The high price was not a garantee for service. Our drivers had no clue of where the mission was, although they had admitted at the station, that they knew where it was. The wanted to drop us at the catholique church, I asked him if he expected us to pray at 2:30 in the night? They wanted to go no further and we did not want to pay. After investigation from us with local people we found out the directions and we were finally brought to our destination. We soon found out the mission only was open from 7 in the morning, so we decided to set up camp on a terrace in front of a bar opposite the mission. A neighbour borrowed us a mat to sit on and we shared our last food, before attempting a short sleep. I did not succeed in that, as I had to much trouble with the mosquitos. At 6:30 the Austrians returned to the station to fetch their bikes and all their other stuff as that had been in a cargo wagon and at night they would not open those, even a lot of complaining did not help. Although the mission opened at 7 we were only to check in at 11 as the sisters were in morning prayers and they were not to happy that the 2 girls slept with the guys. Eventually they made an exeption for us.

The next day at the evening we visited a concert in the national football stadium. Entry ticket was only CFA 1000 not much even for the Malinese, so no surprise it was crowded at the gates. One of Pauls new found friends guided us past the huge queues. I felt a little embarassed, but did not complain. At the gate we bribed a police officer with CFA 1000 to let us in. Unfortunately his superior did not allow us to enter this way and sent us back. The young officer felt obliged to perform for his money and forcefully made a hole in the queue for us. We got some angry looks, but we were in the stadium in no time. Inside the big stadium it became clear that the sound system would only be sufficiently strong enough for a middle sized bar. Which meant that when the 20,000 people were quiet we were able to hear a distant bass high up in the stadium. For me the music was not the entertaining part, but the crowd.They were great to watch, singing and dancing with teh playbacked music. Soon after we arrived the stadium ws full, but still a lot of people were waiting to get in. For a short while the police opened the gates to the ground terrain, causing a run for the gate. After half a minute they closed it again allowing only about 200 people to the pitch. Loads of people were hanging in the fences and gates ready to climb over when the right opportubity rose. The first people who climbed over were violently chased and beaten by the police, but did gave oppurtunity to others to climb over and quickly mix with the crowd aleady on the pitch. This game went on for the whole length of the event and was great to watch. Once in a while people were carried away to the ambulance to be brought to hospital. The ambulance would only start after being pushed for a fex meters. In due course thousands of people were on the pitch randomly attacked by police officers. Sometimes one officer had to be stopped by his colleagues, because he would not stop beating up a victim. At 12 at the the hight of the concert, with finally some live music, which we still could not hear, we left an ecstatic crowd of 30,000 spectators behind us. A great show! The last day in Bamako, the Austrians and I really spoiled ourselves with visiting a pool at a big hotel. The pool was nothing fancy, but it was nice to have a fresh dive and some lazy hours at the pool.

The next day by bus to Segou. I did not see much of the city. I had a short visit to the river Niger to watch the local women do the dishes half naked in the river and after that managed to get in a football game on a beautiful green grass pitch. I scored the first 3 goals and for those who know my goalscoring skills, they know the defence must have been pretty lousy. Despite the fact that we lossed, I was invited to join them for a game the next day. I did not accept, because I had planned to go to Djenne.

I am on it

2006-04-01T12:53:00.000+02:00

It took a while but finally I could embark at the long awaited train. I entered in second class and I was shocked by the state the material was in. Seats fell apart, hugh gaps underneath the exit doors, everything very (very) dirty. Sometimes half of the seat was missing. Fortunately I had booked first class, I disembarked and walked to the front of the train. To my dismay things were not much better here. Though the car was devided in compartments, those still had to be shared by 8. I could stow my little bagpack overhead, but all other free space was occupied with all sorts of luggage of my fellow travelers. They took enormous amounts of luggage with them, ranging from sacks of potato to presents for the family abroad. If their strongest relative could carry it, they would take it. We were with 5 in our compartment, 2 older women who ocupied the whole other side with the 2 of them; a young woman (very good looking) with her child, occupying 3 of the 4 seats at my side and me occupying only the seat next to the isle. This was not all bad as I now could leave without trouble and, more important, stretch my legs into to hallway a bit. I had been looking forward to enjoying the views on the land while travelling through it. This could not be done by sitting in my seat, because the windows were to dirty to look through. For a view outside I had to stand in the aisle and look through the open window. I expected to catch some fresh air while standing there, this proved to be an incorrect assumption as the wind from outside was even hotter then the air inside.

The promised departure was 13:50, of course this was not met, actual departure was 17:00, so all in all a delay of 4 days and 7 hours, not bad on a lifetime. Although we left the station with an amazing speed of about 5 km per hour, I was relieved that we were finally going, I was fearing we would not leave at all. Soon our speed increased to 8 km/h and we reached Rufisque, 7 km from Dakar after one hour. This did not stay this way as we managed to reach Thies all ready after 3 hours and it lies at least 80 km from Dakar.

I tried to sleep a bit in my seat but did not succeed, to hot and to uncomfortable to sleep. At five at we stopped, because a cargo train ahead of us was derailed. When I found out at 7 I left the train to visit 2 guys from Burkina Faso, I met earlier, while waiting for the train at the station. We hung around the train in the shade and once in a while we bought some food or drinks frpm people of a nearby village, who used the occasion to earn some extra money. This was by far the best part of the traintrip. It was cool, loads of space and food, fresh drinks and nice people to share it with. Too bad we were not moving. At 12 we left, which was sooner than expected.

Later that day I found out I was not the only white guy (toubab or toubabou) on the train. I met my first non French Canadian, Paul. He was heading for Bamako to play the famous Malinese music and become a professional musician in Canada. He had taken the wise decision to to travel first class with a sleeper. He had been able to sleep well last night and only one other person was in his compartment.

At 19:00 we arrived in Tambacounda. Here 4 toubabs entered the train. Two of them ended up in my compartment, Alex and Michelle. Austrians on a 2 year bicycle journey from the north cape to the south cape. This was the first time they did not cycle to cover a distance with the exception of the boat from Sweden to Denmark. They proved very good company, but made our already full room, even more full.Since then I did not spend any time there anymore, but to get to my lukewarm water. I mainly stayed in the restaurant car. Do not think this was a luxurious place. It served a rice meal 3 times a day and you could get some cold beer and soft drinks. However it was better to get the food and drinks (cold bissap), from the local people at the stations where we stopped.

In the evening I saw 6 carriages lying upside down beside the track. Apparantly derailed once. All of a sudden more understanding for the at times excruciating low speed. During the second night someone came to fetch our pasports and put them in a plastic bag. We would have to retrieve them at the Senegalese border. Though I was sceptic about the efficiency, everything worked out smoothly. When stamped, they would call your name for s far they could pronounce it and you could collect it. The Mali customs officers came on board and checked passports while we were riding. Westeners should get their passports stamped in Keyes, the first stop in Mali. Stamping the document did not take more than 5 minutes, finding the place to get it stamped turned out more difficult. Luckily we made it back to the train before it left. Later that day I was not that lucky. I had bought an ice cold bissap and was talking with a lot of people, finishing with the guys from Burkina. When I started to look for some food, the horn of the train blew and the train set it self in motion. Before I could make it to the door of the last carriage 20 people were already hanging there to get in. I decided to run along side the train to a free door, but that was only to be found 5 carriages ahead. In full sprint I made it easily and jumped , under a loud sheer of the locals, onto the train.
The rest of the day not much happened. Although still not travelling with the speed of light, we arrived at Bamako at 2 at night.

A shitty start

2006-03-20T19:03:00.000+01:00

Yesterday I met Julien again, I knew him from when I went for a visa at the Mali embassy, when I had just arrived in Dakar. Together we went to an expensive hotel to sit on the terrace at the shore. We both bought an expensive coke to be allowed to sit there. Afterwards we went together with Alioune, a local guy, to Ile de Ngor. On the island I met an Iranian woman and I asked her about the situation in her country. She advised me not to go as there still was a lot of aggression to white people. She could not provide me with an address to stay and to use to invite me to the country as she and all her family would be out the country in a few months. In the evening we ate at street at one of the many little stalls and afterwards I returned to the centre.

At the place I walk propably 10 times a day, two guys tried to rob me. At first they tried to sell me something, no idea what it was. When I said I was not interested one guy grabbed my right leg and hung onto it. The other one tried to grab my wallet from my front pocket of my pants. While I kept my left hand on my pocket I hit the guy on my leg with my right hand, yelling that they should get lost. After a few seconds, they saw that they were not succeeding and gave up their attempt. A bit shocked I followed my way to cybercafe. A now have removed my last bankcard from my wallet and put it also in my moneybelt, that is concealed in my pants. If they will ever steal my wallet, they will only have a small amount of cash, that is maximum the amount I usually spend in a day.

The next day I woke up with a light pain in my stomach and a strong urge to go to the toilet. Just when I put my feet on the floor I shit in my paints. One moment I considered running for the toilet down the hall to offload the reste of my waste, but I knew that then all would and up in my underpants. I have a sort of urinoir in my room and made a dash for it. Just in time I arrived to drop the rest of my waste products. With the immediate urges out of the way, I cleaned my underpants in the sink, hoping that all I left in the urinoir, would flush away from it self. Unfortunately that was not the case. As I had not the intention to stir my shit with my finger, I searched for something that would do the job. The only thing I could find was my bic pen and it worked marvelous. It took ten minutes before all was gone, but by then you could not see anything of the accident anymore. I will not be using the pen anymore, but it was a shitty pen anyway.

After two visits to the toilet, my bowels felt they had done enough and I left for my daily visit of the train station. Ofcourse I went first for a banana at the market, where they now know me as monsieur banana. At the station I was positively surprised, because they were able to tell me the train would most definitely leave tomorrow at 13:50. This seemed a bit exact as they previously were not even able to tell what day it would leave. Added to that I was allowed to buy a ticket for the train. I choose first class, but without bed. I hope now that the train really goes and it was all worth while. Time will tell.

Maybe Tuesday

2006-03-18T19:35:00.000+01:00

Latest information about when the train will run is Monday, but it also might depart on Tuesday. I wonder how the local people know when to go to the station to take the train? May be it is written in the papers or in the news, all I know I go at least once a day to the station until it is Tuesday, if by then the train does not leave I will take the bus, the bus is faster anyway.

In the mean time I have started to try to do some programming for my cycling game on paidiagames.com. This is not very easy as I have to write everything on paper and have no way to test. I hope I can use it later on. It is a pity the only books I can buy here are in French, else I would buy some on programming. Now that is of no use as I am bad in programming and even worse in French. I have started buying Senegalese papers to search for train departures and practise my French, though. The paper only consists of 8 pages tabloid format, but still there was a piece on Marco van Basten, it seemed to have something to do with when to publish the final selection for the world championship football.
I had to write a piece for the Toeter, the lifestyle magazine of football club Ariston. I found it to hard to refuse as I had not much to do, but I hope Rob does not ask me again. Which is very likely as I was not very happy with the quality of my attempt.

No train today

2006-03-17T12:42:00.000+01:00

ARGG, I now have been waiting for a week in Dakar for the train, does it seem it will not run tomorrow. Nobody really seems to know, but the most heard story so far is that the train is derailed. It might be that it will arrive today, but it will definitely not leave tomorrow, they tell me. As most people have other interests as well, like family with a bus company I still have a little hope. I will return to the station a few times today, luckily it is not far from the centre and my hotel. I now have to consider going by bus as it possibly might take 2 weeks before the next train (is the same train, they only have one) goes. I will keep you posted.

Waiting for the train

2006-03-16T20:22:00.000+01:00

All days look the same here and much is not happening, but still I will try to write a short piece for you. I found out on Monday that the train to Bamako only goes once a week, on Saturday, if it goes at all. I decided to wait and that is what I am doing. My days start with waking late, paying for another night at the hotel and walk to the market to buy a banana. I now have bought so many times one banana with the same guy that I not even have to ask for it, he just hands me the banana and I hand him the 100 CFA. This reminds me of my lunching routine at ABN when I went to Arie van der Raa for sandwiches. After my banana I try to think of something to do for the day. I have visited Ile de Gorree 3 times, whichs happens to have Dutch ties. The name comes from Goede Reede and in the harbour lies a (very) small boat donated by the Dutch embassy. It is not very strange then that I feel very at home at the small Island. It is very quiet -no cars- and a little bit less hot than the mainland. Marcel a promising young Dutch writer, according to his publisher Bezige Bij at least, rents a room up there. With him I visited some of Dakars bars or clubs. He also lend me a book and his Lonely Planet of West Africa. It is nice for a change to speak Dutch and to enjoy some of the nightlife, although I have nothing exiting to tell about.

I also have visited an Island in the north Ile de Ngor. On this Island I was invited by locals to join them in eating their just caught fish. The fish were prepared in a little restaurant at the beach and we ate with our right hand. Although I never used to like fish, I am really starting to enjoy it. After that we drank a cup of Senegalese tea, strong but nice. Earlier at the beach one of the kids/young guys tried to sell me slippers. I refused to buy anything with my standard reason that I do not have space in my backpack. We chatted a bit afterwards and he came back to me every time he had tried to sell slippers to newly arrived guests on the island. He asked me if I was married, I denied, but told him I would search for a wife after my trip. I promised him if I met a Dutch girl I did not want for myself, but was blond, rich, not taller than 1.75m, I would recommend him as a very good husband. This must have impressed him, because when I wanted to take the bus into the centre he handed me a little money. First time it happened to me in Africa someone gave me money instead of asking for it. So ladies take your chance if you qualify, the young guy s name is Ousmane, he is almost 19 and his email is Ousmane_@yahoo.fr. He is the nice lad in the picture.

Tomorrow, Friday, I am going to try to get my train ticket. Do some shopping for the train trip, it is scheduled for 2 days, but easily can take longer. Also have to by some good anti mosquito stuff. The one I have now does not impress me and what is worse it does not impress the mosquitos either. Do not know yet what I am going to do about the malaria risk yet.

It is a pitty that there is no embassy of Niger or Chad up here. I had plenty of time to get a visa. Entering Niger might be a hassle as there is no embassy of Niger in Mali either, well I will see how it goes. I think I am going to visit Abdul, he sits at the corner of the street of my hotel and sells delicious baguettes with meat, vegetables, spagetti and hot sauce. May be not healthy, but very tasty, sorry mam, I will make up for it tomorrow.

Going south again

2006-03-09T21:43:00.000+01:00

Although the first night I slept in a bed, I decided to change that again as I found the room to expensive and to smelly as a bathroom was included. This was one reason for the high price propably. There also supposed to be a warm shower, but I did not find any remotely warm water in the morning. They let me sleep on the roof terrace in the tent. Which I guess was in any way much better. Next night I did not sleep much better as I was too lazy to swap to another couch as the one I was lying on was tilted. What did not help either is that it stormed.

Also in Ifni is not much happening, although I met here a nice French girl, who spoke English and a very nice German guy, with who I drank some wine and beer. He brought it from Spain, when all what he had brought was gone, we tried our luck at the 2 bars of Ifni, but at 12 they al ready were closed. I managed to buy a bottle of wine though, which we emptied in my room. With the German, Kai, I went on a short tour through the surrounding hills, with his 4x4. On one of the hills I was attacked by a dog, it did not manage to really bite me, but still it left an impression and it hurt too.

Kai had plans to repair his car in Ifni, but it turned out, he did not like the price they asked for two new doors, so he decided, after consulting with me, to leave as soon as possible to the south. We had decided earlier that I would join him until Dakar. So we left March-6, midday and headed south, for a trip of about 2000k through the desert. At 2:30 at night we stopped for a sleep at the beach near Dakhla. Kai slept in the car, I next to it in the sand. Around 12 we left Dakhla, after some coffee, the purchase of food and the attachment of the 2 number plates to the car at a mechanic shop. Until now the plates had been taped behind the windows, but the police always was clueles about their whereabouts and were always stopping us because of this and because of the strange shape of the car of course.

Leaving Morocco was not that difficult, nor entering Mauritania, it was getting from one country to the other that caused some problems. There was a strip of no-one’s land with no roads only sand and rocks. Although we had a 4x4 car we got stuck in the deep sand. We had to move the sand to get the car driving again. With the help of a local we managed to find the border post of the Mauritanians. At night we arrived in Nouakchott and we slept in a tent at an auberge, which was quite nice, because the wind could cool us a bit. During the day it had been about 45 degrees Celcius in our non air-conned car.

In the morning we had breakfast at the auberge and after that we left for the border to Senegal. Kai had the idea not to cross the border at Rosso, which looked like the logical place to cross, but more to the west, where we could use the bridge instead of the ferry. According to Kai there was a lot of hassle in Rosso. It must have been really bad in Rosso, because the place where we tried to cross, they tried to squeeze money out of us at every occasion they could think of. We had to cross a national park, pay; cross a town, pay; pass the customs at the Mauritanian side, pay; pass the police post at the Mauritanian side, pay; cross the bridge, pay; pass the police at the Senegalese side, pay; pass the customs at the Senegalese side, pay. We also had to buy insurance for the car in Senegal. Because our tactic for not paying/lowering the amount was just walking out of them and wait till they came back to us, it took a rather long time before we were on the move again, but the tactic was pretty effective.

We arrived in Dakar at night. The first hotel was very expensive, the second I found was half its price and with much less comfort. I decided to go for the low price. In the price included was the easy access to hookers, as the hotel is used as a brothel. It did not bother me though. All the women were very friendly anyway. It was a shame I had to part from Kai, as I really liked to travel with him, but he had to go further south and I thought the train trip to Bamako would be really cool.

I wanted to go by train from Dakar to Bamako by train as soon as possible. Because I thought Dakar not that appealing partly because of the high prices. At the train station I heard that the next train would leave on Saturday, 2 days away. The only thing I needed was proof of vaccination against the yellow fever if I were to use the train to enter Mali. I knew I was vaccinated, however did not bring my vaccination booklet. The guys at the station knew a guy in town who would be able to provide me with such a document, for proper reward of course. I was brought there and in 5 minutes I was vaccinated against yellow fever and cholera at least on paper. It only cost 2500 CFA’s, so that was not bad at all. Now hope it works. Of course I also needed a Mali visa, unfortunately the embassy was already close when I arrived on Thursday. On Friday I was in time, but then they told me the visa would only be finished on Monday. I could not speed up the process in any way. So now I am going to take the Tuesday train.

A day at the beach

2006-03-03T19:01:00.000+01:00

My appearance must be very gay as I am often asked to act in that direction. Also in dignity I was invited to some sexual activity with a person of my sexe. At first I did not really understand what he was talking about. He spoke French and my knowledge of the language is "petit". When he made an effort to touch my dick and made some moves of what he liked to do with it, I grasped what he was talking of. I declined his generous offer and was happy I was close to my hotel. Earlier I was followed by a guy who wanted to arrange a marriage for me with a girl who needed it to get into fort Europe. He offered 4000 Euros. Also this offer I declined, but if anybody (boy or girl) is interested, let me know and I will set you up with this dude.

When I arrived at Mirleft by grand taxi, sharing the front passenger seat, I was a bit disappointed. I had expected a town at the beach but a beach could not be found. After walking half an hour to the sea I saw little pieces of sand between the rocks. This were not the beaches I was aiming for. After another half an hour I stumbled into something that resembled my view of a beach. It was not very crowded, which is fine, but I was hoping to meet people, only an elder Belgian couple was present with a camper. I headed back to town to have a late lunch. I also investigated how much a room would cost in a hotel. I thought this to be too expensive and decided to sleep on the beach. After buying some food and water I returned to the beach. A few kids now were playing football and invited me to join. They were technically skilled enough, but did not know much about tactics. Had a good time though, but after 2 hours, when most had left, I decided to quit. By now a bunch of Germans arrived with 4 campers and I invited myself to there little carnavals party even had some beer, which tasted good, but mainly because I did not have any for a month. At 11 party was over and I went to my sleeping place which turned out to be 10m, on the beach. Ofcourse I had not prepared anything, so I dropped at the first spot I did not feel, it was rather dark, too many rocks, although the little flashlight Iljoesja gave me just before I left Delft was very usefull. It took some time before I fell asleep, but was wakened rudely by rain at about 2. I gathered all my stuff around me and hid underneath my big raincape. This worked very well, but did not allow me to sleep. After an hour or so I took all up and walked to a nearby cave, where a Moroccan permanently lived. When I arrived I found out there were 2 caves and I took the one he was not in.

I was awaken by a German to invite me for a hot drink, which I accepted of course. Rest of the day I did not do much but reading and talking with other people on the beach.Although the sky still was not cloudless I tried another night at the beach, again the rain woke me up. Again I put all my stuff under the cape, now I had prepared for it so it went much faster than the night before. After only half an hour it was dry and I could go back to sleep. Later I was woken, again by water, this time the one already on the ground, the tide was coming in. Although at first still not to close, soon one wave came to about 10 cm of my feet. Time to climb a little higher. Unfortunately the surface was very rocky and I could not catch any sleep. So when the sea returned the land to me I went back to my old spot, which had not been flooded anyway, so was still dry (it had been for a large part under my cape, when it rained). It turned out that I was lucky that I had not slept in the cave, because this one was badly flooded.

In the morning the germans left and so did I. In Mirleft I met an Englishman, Dominic, giving me loads of advice about traveling in Africa and Asia, he also told me about a great spot about 9k south. When I arrived, the 2 people he described who would be there, were. I shared some of my bread, water and oranges with them and they gave me some hot tea. I could sleep in a room of a deserted house. To Hassan who spoke English, I gave one of my English books, because I no longer wanted to carry it and I had heard from Dominic he was reading English. In the evening not much to do but read by the candle light, from the candles I just bought. Good nights sleep, without worries about rain or tide. Only that the floor was rather hard.

For breakfast I was invited by another fisherman in his cave. I had tea and bread with oil which was quite nice. I put in my last orange. Before returning to Mirleft had a long walk south on the coastal rocks.

In Mirleft I ran into Dominic for the second time while I was drinking the very sweat Moroccan mint tea. Dominic had finished reading his book and I still had one to spare so we traded. For the moment he convinced me to going south into Mauritania and Mali, but I might change my mind as I have done so often on this subject lately. I made one litle effort in this direction I took the bus to Sidi Ifni, where I indulged myself by allowing me to sleep in a bed this time. I think I will stay here for a while, although there is not much to do or see, that actually suites me just fine right now.

Hatless

2006-02-26T23:05:00.000+01:00

Arggh, I did it again. This time I accidentaly pushed a switch that cut the power to my pc, all my work gone. I should admit I have wisened up a bit, as I now save quite often, but apparently not often enough. As I began with earlier that I was not to enthousiastic to start updating my log, but the longer I wait the more work it will be, I now can confide in you that I have even less enthousiasm left. So bewarned readers, this most likely will not be a very good piece for reading. Fortunately not much happened since my last report, so it should not take me that long to type.

I left you in Ouarzazate and that is what we also did after a day, because there was not much to do, except for arranging a camel (dromedar) trek in the dessert (!), which is what we did. At 10 to 5 in the morning we arrived at the busstation to head for Zagora, so we were 10 minutes early, unfortunately our bus was 1 hour and 45 minutes late. Great start of the day. What I would do when I was late, I would try to make up for it, this is something they will not do here. They acted still as if they were half an hour early. Eventually we arrived in Zagora were we tried to get a grand taxi to MHamid our dromedar ride starting point. Finding the taxi was easy, getting it filled to the max was more difficult. After half an hour we had 4 passengers, still one shy, we agreed to split the cost between the 4 of us. In the end we, Fede and I, were the ones turning up for the cost, but what else is new. An other slight problem was that the other passengers did only want to go halfway of MHamid. We decided to leave anyway and deal with the problem when it happened. In the end there was no problem as halfway there were plenty of people to share a cab with us. Who would not, how often can a Morrocan share a cab with two fine western male specimen as we? Although all that went well, I was so unlucky to lose my Nepalese hat in one of the cabs or around it. When I found out in MHamid I searched the 2nd cab but to no avail. A day later in Zagora I visited the taxi stand but ofcourse no hat. If by any chance one of you sees a Moroccan wearing a big blue Nepalese hat, my hat, please retrieve it for me and I will be in your debt forever.

In MHamid we soon found our man and after handing over the Dirhams we were set to go. The dromedars were waiting, only our guide could not be found. After a lot of calling a little kid was found to lead us into the desert. We mounted the ships of the desert and followed the guide who was on foot. (My first disapointment) We first walked through a wasteland of sand and plastic bags (second disappointment) before we reached someting that resembled anything that I imagined to be desert. After an hour and a half we reached our final destination (third disappointment) and from here you could still see the village (fourth disappointment). Our little guide set up camp while we disapointedly climbed the highest dune in the neighbourhood to have a good look around us. While our little guide was busy, the dromedars were eating bread, which should have been served with our tajine. To illustrate how far we were from the inhabitated world, the kid used my phone to call a little friend to bring some new food. The desert bread delivery guy came within the hour and left, propably to visit some other clowns in the desert who also lost their meal to the dromedars. After watching a beautiful sunset and a good meal we went to sleep in the tent. At 6 (holiday is worse than working, I usually never get up so early let alone 2 days in a row) we got up to watch the sunrise. We were way to early and the horizon was cloudy anyway so I slept for 2 hours at the top of the dune. Had breakfast and then went back in a sandstorm to MHamid. Although my companion did not like it, I enjoyed the fact that you hardly could see anything and that finally the feeling came that I was in the middle of nowhere. After a long bus ride we came back to Ouarzazate, where still not much was happening. Some famous movies have been shot here though (viewers question nr1, name 3?)

The next morning, again early, we went to nearby Ait Ibn Hadou to watch a beatiful old village with kasbah. Although a bit polluted by a busload of tourists arriving just ahead of us, it was very nice and at the top of the hill quiet as the elder people, who seem to populate those busses did not have the stamina to climb up that far. Later that day we returned to Marrakech through the high Atlas which was hard enough because of the snow that had fallen during the night.
Essaouira was our next destination and the place were Fede and I would part (snif). He had to go back to Holland and I had to stay in Morocco, as I had burdened myself with this dreadful journey to Indonesia. I had hoped it would be possible to go east through Africa and then north to Turkey. This seems to be nearly next to impossible and it seems I have to go back to Europe first before I can head east. If anyone has a better solution please let me know. I prefer not to go back to Europe but stay in Africa.

After 2 nights in the relaxed beach town Essaouira (viewers question nr 2 name the famous movie shot here?) with its beautiful bastion facing sea, I have gone south again this time to the town Tiznit, which I most likely will change for Mirleft tomorrow, about 40 km away from here.

The people who answer both questions correctly before March 1, I will honour by sending them a postcard (If I know the address) Isnt that a great price?

Puke, prostitutes and diarrhoea

2006-02-23T20:50:00.000+01:00

After Fes I took the train to Meknes, also one of the imperial cities, but not as large as Fes. In the train I met Fedde, an Argentine, who currently works in The Hague. We got along quite well so we decided to travel together for a while. We found a nice hotel in the Medina after which we started to wander through the little streets, after a couple of hours we stumbled into a kid with a ball and we played football with him. Soon another joined and another. At first we were just passing the ball to each other, later 1 was in the middle to capture the ball after more people were joining, also adults 2 were to capture the ball. We decided to play a game of 4 against 4. The team who scored remained on the pitch, the losers were replaced. Fede and I played together with the é kids we originally started playing with. And we seemed to be an unbeatable combination. At first the teams were not to good, but as they failed to score against us they gathered better players to beat us. After 1 hour they succeeded, but I like to blame it on our fatigue. After 1 game we had to play again, which we did, but our fire was gone and we quit after half an hour. We made a photo of our team, then the father of the youngest came to me with his address to send the picture to. He was very proud his kid had done so well. I have some problems with getting the pictures out of my camera though so it might take a while before he gets it.

In the evening we had a wonderful meal in a restaurant, which really was some ones home, it tasted good, and the atmosphere was nice as well. After that went to bed as we both were very tired.

Feb-18 my plan was to go to Volubulis an old roman city in ruins. However Fede did not feel like it and as I always can go to it later I decided to join him on his trip to Marrakech by train, which took 7 hours. Here most tourists can be found, but still it is worthwhile to go here, as it is really a live place and lots to see. Although we have not succeeded in discovering a proper nightlife. Saturday night we made an attempt to find any nightlife (girls) and went to a nightclub. We were early so the club was a bit empty. There was alcohol, which we ordered in the form of caiperinas, which cost more than one night in our hotel, but so often we are not to enjoy the Marrakech nightlife. Then it struck us that all the people around were very beautiful women, hmmm. Normally not a problem, on the contrary, but this could mean only one thing, they were at work. The place we were had apart from a bar also a room where you could dance, but it opened only later. We decided to leave the place for a teahouse (best alternative) nearby to return when the dancing opened, to hopefully find some normal women. Alas, when we returned, also there the only women present had to be paid for, although now much more men were present. By the way some of the girls really knew how to dance. So after a while of watching I decided I had been idle enough and entered the dance floor. Usually I get some female attention (I did not say positive:-), but now I did not get any, probably it was quite clear I was not to spend any on them. We went back to the hotel quite early that night.

The next day we stayed in Marrakech and did not much but being lazy and sitting on terraces. Apparently this is not good for me as I got a stomachache and went to bed early. Unfortunately I could not stay there for long as I had to run to the nearest (I could have chosen a different one as well of course) toilet to start a waterfall from my behind. This activity repeated itself about every 15 to 30 minutes. Much of sleep I did not get. In the middle of the night I also had to throw up and the only appropriate place to drop it was the sink. This of course was not ideal, as the chunks tend to block the holes. So I had to stir my own puke to let it walk away. I had hoped I would feel better afterwards, who would not, but I did not. I was a bit worried because we would take a bus at 8:30 in the morning. I decided to take some diarrhoea blockers and they worked wonder well. I had no problem for the whole trip to Ourzazate.

I am still lagging but will update soon.

In god he trusts

2006-02-16T19:21:00.000+01:00

In the evening I met Adam again on the top of the hotel, I had spoken with him before I went on my little trekking. He invited me to come along with him, to visit some fellow Quebecians in restaurant nearby. The food was excellent and the company as well. Played a game that very much looked like ‘mens erger je niet’, but was slightly more complicated, but not less frustrating. We played one game until 2, but did not finish it. Funny that I now never drink alcohol as the restaurants do not serve it. Lots of hasj though, but I do not smoke.

Next day I went with the bus to Fes. This is the cultural capital of Morocco. The medina is gigantic. Actually it is a bit to big for me, you have to walk such distances.When you get lost it takes so long before you know again where you are, that easily an hour has passed. Luckily I brought my compass. The tip I got from Adam to always walk up, when lost also works well, as at that end are the most ports.

Something really unexpected happened last night. Someone tried to convert me. That in itself is not so strange in a land of muslims, but someone, my roommate, tried to convert me to Christianity. I had told him that I did not believe in a god, although I was raised as Christian. He showed me parts from the bible to give proof of gods existence and to show why I need him. My opinion is that I can do without him, his was that I could not. We discussed about 2 hours, but he would not stop. The problem was that he was lying in the bed next to me. Even when I wished him good night he came with questions to prove me wrong. Eventually he shut up. He is not unfriendly guy though, but he is a professional converter and that prohibits him to talk about other things longer than 10 minutes.

hasj and hassle

2006-02-14T21:11:00.000+01:00

After Malaga I tried to visit an uncle who lives in Fuengirola just south of Malaga. Unfortunately he just had moved within the same city. Both my brother and my father sent me his latest address unfortunately it was not exact equal but good enough to go with I thought. First setback was that the street did not exist only a name of builing in a newly developed area had close resemblance. I decided to go there but when I arrived the building was not even there. At the bottom of the hill they told me it is at the top, at the bottom they said the opposit. As it was very hot and I was carrying all my stuff up and down the mountain I decided to go to the beach instead. After some time I had enough of that and headed for the centre to catch a bus to Algeciras, the port to Marocco. The bus was about to leave when I arrived, but I did not yet have a ticket, I asked them to wait which they did to my surprise as my ticket acquisition did not go very fast. In Algeciras there were lots of cheap hotels and easy to find too. So I quickly could check out the centre. It was quite nice and lots of people in the street as it was friday evening. I sat on a plaza till 10 while I updated my logbook (this azerty keyboard in combination with arabic settings wont let me write all the symbols I want and once in a while it shifts to arabic I write this in wordpad by the way, no word on this machine) Sometimes I find a symbol by accident eg the ( is the symbol you get by pressing the 5 key at the top of the keyboard.

Ok after the short intermezzo I continue. The next morning I took the boat to Tanger, it was scheduled to leave at 11, but left at 12, was ok for me, but an American guy who just went on a day trip to Tanger was less happy with it. Then it also took 3 quarters of an hour to pass passport control, so he had to go back in just 2 hours to catch his 9 oclock train to Sevilla. I did not have that problem. As I bought a lonely planet of Morocco I did not even have difficulties in finding a good place to stay, a youth hostel this time. What they warn you for when you arrive in Tanger is people who want to guide you through the city for a certain fee of course. I met my guide right in front of the hostel, he said he was not guide, but wanted to offer me a good impression of Tanger as so many people where hassleing and giving a negative view on Morocco and Tanger. I was his student he said, a friend. Fine with me, but I told him that when we were done I would not give him money, he agreed. Of course 1 hour later when I had enough of it and said I would start exploring on my own, he asked for money. Then I reminded him what I had said earlier. Because he really had shown me stuff I would not have on my own I gave him something. This happens all the time in Morocco, people give you something that you do not want (usually a service) you do not ask for and then charge you money, very annoying. Apart from that, in Tanger I was asked every 50 meter if I wanted hasj, I felt like being back in Amsterdam. When I walked back after an excellent dinner for just 46 dirham (about 4.60 E) I was caught up by a very friendly guy, we talked a little and had a moroccan tea, which is very very sweet and has the leafs floating in the glass. He then told me he was a drugstrafficker and that his family had a hasj farm. He invited me to his farm to see what it looks like and maybe I could find some customers in Holland for him for a couple of kilos. I decided not to go although the offer obviously was tempting.

Instead I took the bus to Chefchaouen. This also was great fun. In Tetouan a man entered the bus with a huge bag full of Kif, I learned when he opened it to put it under the seats, also under mine as I was in the last row and in the overhead storage. When he just finished stowing it out of sight an other guy entered with even more stuff, this time in boxes. They could not really hide it but they put in on the bus anyway. They were a bit nervous and sweating but all went well. The moneycollector of the bus, wanted to be compensated naturally, which happened as with a man siiting next to me who had to hide a box between his legs. When we finally started moving again a girl in front of me was having problems with travel sickness. She asked for a bag which she filled in due course. However she threw away the sack, when she thought she was done. Unfortunately she did not ask for a new empty one, when the second delivery came all was spilled on the floor. No problem, the bus boy put a paper over it stepped a few times on it, no more problem, luckily I was at my destination in 10km.

In Chefchaoun I found a nice hotel in the middle of the medina. The first few times I had a lot of trouble finding it back. First time I wandered around for 3 quarters of an hour, before finding it. Now I know my way (a bit) in the Medina and it does not take me that long anymore, when I start at the Kasbah. Yesterday and today I did a trekking through the mountains. Was very nice again an uninvited guide walking with me for the whole trek, obviously he wanted money for his services. I did not want to upset him to much as I walked through the regions of his family and amigos. The first 4 hours of the trek were the hardest as I had to climb from 200m to 1800m, the last bit even through the snow. What was funny was that my wannebee guide was only wearing showering slippers on his feet, chilly. Going down was even worse as that side of the mountain is always in the shade, so much more snow. At 2 we reached at nice gite where I stayed and my wannebee guide aswell. The owner was very friendly and we spoke the rest of the day with hand and feet, in spanish, french and english. Good fun. Food was excellent as well. Next day no big climbs, mainly down. At one point I was scared shitless as I had to descend on a 20 cm wide ridge with next to me on my right 50m down absolutely nothing, this only tho get a beautifull picture of a natural bridge. After that just strolling to Achour where I shared (with 5 other passengers plus a little child) a grand taxi (old mercedes) to Chefchaouen, where I am now, staying in the same hotel as earlier.

I cheated, I took the train

2006-02-09T20:13:00.000+01:00

It has been only a few days since I last reported here, but in a short time a lot can happen. In my case not much happened, but to not give you the feeling I have forgotten about you, here is a small update.

I now am in Malaga and have not much done here, except for searching a proper place to sleep. Taco advised me to go to Picasso´s corner but after a long search I still had not found it. Later it became clear that the hostel was just in a move. Of course I do not carry maps or things like that so Taco´s second pick I could not find. Loads of different hotels in the area, but they were all too expensive in my view. Well I eventually settled for the Hotel Carlos V. Above budget and an awful room, but finally a place to drop my heavier backpack than was intended while it only has room for 35L. Today I searched for a new one, a hotel that is. Taco´s second pick was full, I now have a map, so I am in a dodgy place called Rosa´s Pension, I have not seen Rosa though, but as she is not so big she is of course hard to spot. Today I was at the beach where I met a guy, we spoke for a while and I asked him where he stayed, he told me he is in Rosa´s Pension as well. What is the chance of that? (My econometric friends do not have to answer that).
Today is really a computer day as this is already the second time I am in an internet café, earlier I have worked on correcting an error in my wielerspel tool for paidiagames.com (a little bit of advertisement for our site) . That is all right as I do not think Malaga to be an exiting place, although sitting in the sun with a beer is accommodated in abundance here.

Feb-07 I travelled by train from Barcalona to Cordoba. I took about 10 hours but this was ok as I could recapture some sleep, as I had to get op at 6:30 to catch the train. Also I could finish my just acquired book “The Shadow Of The Wind” by Carlos Ruiz Zafon. A book I really can recommend. It is about a boy whose father lets him chose any one book he likes from a secret library, but he then has to promise to take care of the book for the rest of his life. The boy chooses the book “The Shadow Of The Wind” by Julian Carax. Soon he becomes aware that quite a few people are interested in this book. He wants to know more about the book and its writer and because of this he gets in quite some adventures. So far this week book review.

When I arrived in Cordoba I started to doubt if this city was worth visiting. I thought I recalled that it had a beautiful old city, but I could no where find it. After walking for half an hour I finally caught a glimpse of an old wall. Still I was not impressed, but after a few blocks I was caught in a maze of beautiful streets. It was breath taking. Added to that I bumped into very nice old hostal, “El Portillo” it had only 7 rooms. The owners lived on the ground floor, the guests on the next. On the Feb the 8th before going to Malaga again by train I wandered through the old city and visited the mezquita/cathedral. It was huge! Not high but an enormous floor with I guess about 800 pillars carrying the ceiling. I did not read anything about the building, but I guess it at first was created by the Moors and after that turned into a church. What at first also struck me in Cordoba, were the orange trees. I am not used to seeing oranges just hanging in trees let alone in every street. They also are in Malaga and they may have also been in Barcalona and although I am now quite used to them, they still beats just regular Dutch trees.

Last time I wrote I was in Barcelona, I did not do much there either, visited the regular tourist spots, Parc Guell, Segrada Familia, not to Camp Nou, sounds a bit like treason to my football hobby, but I always can return ofcourse. Like Cordoba Barcelona is so clean and neat, that really impressed me. What I also notice is that the sun makes life so much better and friendlier at least in the places I visited so far. People are just strawling around, drinking something on a terrace. Life looks so much better in the sun. So I suggest instead of raising taxes or medical costs lets raise temperatures in Holland

Off we go

2006-02-05T20:44:00.000+01:00

The second time I start now with writing this first post, it will obviously be different and propably be shorter (and I hope better). Previously I was typing directly in the editor of the blog and when I thought I was smart to copy all what I had typed in word to save it, it all disappeared miraculously. So here we go again.

As the above already makes clear I do not always know what I am doing, just hoping everything works out. This is true for this page, I have not practiced with it as for the whole trip, no plan, no preparations. Here come the first few days.

On feb-3 I finally left Holland, much later than promised, but ok I am gone now. My first ride was only from Oosterhout to Breda but it got me on the way and I now was on the road to Antwerpen, my first planned destination, or at least direction, on a petrol station. The advantage of a petrol station is that you can ask people to take you with them and strangely enough you are much faster moving again. The next person who took me on board was an ex army guy who now worked for a company as information security manager. We spoke the whole trip from Breda to Lyon and we even touched upon Sarbane-Oxley and Basel 2, which brought back my ABN-time which looks much longer ago than 2 months. I had decided I would sleep in Lyon, unfortunately I was dropped of 20 km north and was not very successful in getting a ride for the last km to Lyon. Finally 2 Dutch girls and guy would bring me to Lyon, however the girl who was driving, kept following tom-toms instructions and tom-tom did not want to go to Lyon. After missing a couple of exits they dropped me of at the airport and I managed to get a bus to Lyon centre. I text messaged my brother for some advice on cheap hostels, but when he responded I already had chosen another. This strategy helped me enormously the next day in Barcelona, as I then got the info in time.

After a breakfast at the Rhone in freezing conditions I got on my way to Montpellier. Arie, a housemate in Delft, had told me he had friends there and that I should stop by when I was in the neighborhood. It was on my route south so it seemed like a good idea. My French ride, with whom I had a hard time communicating (I should have paid more attention in French class at school), let me out of the car after Montpellier on the autoroute. I now had no chance to go to Montpellier. I decided to try to get a ride to Barcelona with one of the many truckers. I was lucky and a Spanish guy was nuts enough to let me in his truck. He did not speak much other language than Spanish and I hardly speak Spanish, however we managed to have a good time, although 90% of what was said was lost. This propably was the reason why I left the truck on an awful spot. I walked past a dark road for about 5 km before I came in a town, where I met 2 very nice people who showed me the way to metro station with which I got in the centre of Barcelona, where I am now. Today I have walked through the city as I will tomorrow and then I think I will take a train or bus south as I am hardly able to communicate in Spanish. That is all for now. Hope you are not already asleep.